


you are my sun, my moon (and all of my stars)

by Goodforthesoul



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Consensual Sex, Cunnilingus, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Mad Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Masturbation, seriously she is a fairy tale evil queen, things are going to get a little angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 78,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodforthesoul/pseuds/Goodforthesoul
Summary: When the white wolf came, the Lord of Winterfell had no choice but to give him his eldest daughter. Eddard Stark had grown up on legends of wolves, on the stories of bargains made by the First Men, on the knowledge of the price that he and his family might one day be forced to pay.  His father had explained the reason their house had taken a wolf as its heraldry and “Winter is Coming” as its motto, a reminder of a promise to honor, a recognition of a debt owed that would need, one day, to be paid. Ned had breathed a sigh of relief when his sister’s twentieth winter arrived and the beast had not. And he had watched the dawn sky for the first signs of the snow that would mark that his daughter, too, might also be spared, might escape the fate that had been handed down by their ancestors. But no man could be so lucky.Sansa, too, had been born with the North in her blood, had been raised on the stories of white wolves, had lived her life with the knowledge that one might come for her.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 987
Kudos: 1244





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that everyone is staying safe and well. 
> 
> I've been kicking around this story for a while, and now seemed as good a time as ever to start posting it (though it wasn't until I started rereading it to edit that I realized what quarantine/social distancing vibes it has, and I assure you it is entirely coincidental, I started writing this back in December during my winter break). The title of the story comes from a beautiful E.E. Cummings poem. No content warnings on this piece, but I will likely add additional tags as I go, and I will let you all know if that changes.

When the white wolf came, the Lord of Winterfell had no choice but to give him his eldest daughter. Eddard Stark had grown up on legends of wolves, on the stories of bargains made by the First Men, on the knowledge of the price that he and his family might one day be forced to pay. His father had explained the reason their house had taken a wolf as its heraldry and “Winter is Coming” as its motto, a reminder of a promise to honor, a recognition of a debt owed that would need, one day, to be paid. Ned had breathed a sigh of relief when his sister’s twentieth winter arrived and the beast had not. And he had watched the dawn sky for the first signs of the snow that would mark that his daughter, too, might also be spared, might escape the fate that had been handed down by their ancestors. But no man could be so lucky. 

Sansa, too, had been born with the North in her blood, had been raised on the stories of white wolves, had lived her life with the knowledge that one might come for her. And so, when he padded up to Winterfell, awaiting his tribute, she had calmly wrapped her heaviest winter cloak around her shoulders, her hair, the color of autumn, bright against the white of the furlined wool, and bid farewell to her brothers and sister, her mother and father, with only the barest tremor in her voice, only the slightest quiver in her touch, only a whisper of the fear and dread that she felt. She was a child of the North, the eldest daughter of Winterfell, and she accepted the sacrifice that she must make for her family and her people, and so when she passed through the gates of the castle and approached the beast, she held her head high. He was no ordinary wolf, so unlike, so much more than, those that prowled the woods where her father and brothers hunted, the pack whose song to the moon drifted down the halls of her home. He stood nearly as tall as she and his fur was long and thick and beautiful, as pure as midnight snow. Still, she held his gaze. “On behalf of the Starks of Winterfell, and in honor of bargains made of old, I give myself over to you.” And she curtseyed before the beast. “Where you go, I follow,” she said softly.

And the white wolf stared at her for a moment. “Are you afraid, daughter of Winterfell?” he asked, his voice rough but gentle. 

“No,” she replied, for she was of the North and her veins were full of ice and snow. Faced with her departure, with this great beast, fear might flutter through her and settle, like a moth, on her heart, but she would not let it show. 

The wolf seemed to bow his head, a slight dip of affirmation, of respect, Sansa was not sure which, and he turned to lead her to the unknown. For while the stories spoke of the wolves’ coming, they did not say what happened to the maidens they claimed. 

They had come for six before her, the legends said. Six since the Kings in the North had struck their bargain, promising their daughters in exchange for protection. It had been nearly a hundred years since the last girl left behind the walls of Winterfell to walk into the wilderness, a tribute, an offering, a payment to guard against the ancient powers that dwelled beyond a broken wall. One girl every few generations certainly must have seemed a small price. Though, for Sansa, who was the seventh to pay it, it seemed very large indeed. 

Lord Eddard, too, felt the burden of the bargain, silently chafed under what he had been forced to surrender to pay the debts that his ancestors had accrued. So he watched, full of grim sorrow and resolve, standing beside his lady wife as their daughter left, trailing behind the wolf. Sansa did not look back, and he was so proud of her; she gave herself to protect her home, her people, and he wished that he might have been permitted to take her place, to give his life for hers. But the stories all agreed; the wolf took only maidens, not their heart-sore and weary fathers. And so he could do nothing but silently, powerlessly, bear witness to his daughter’s sacrifice. 

Lady Caitlin Stark, though, was born of the South and had been raised on different songs and did not follow old ways or Old Gods, and could not so calmly accept the loss of her daughter. She watched Sansa leave, raging and sobbing and cursing her husband for heartless cruelty in allowing this to happen, his cold stoicism as his oldest daughter departing to her death, or, Seven save her, worse.

“I am sorry, my love,” he told her gently, trying his best to calm his wife, his own heart heavy and breaking. “But the Starks are not Tullys. We cannot put family before duty and honor. Our ways are different here. The Seven have little power so far North and there are Older Gods we must appease.” And so, husband and wife stood together in their grief, watching their eldest daughter depart, holding their vigil until they could see nothing more than a speck of red against the snow that had only just begun to fall. 

Sansa walked in silence, following the wolf as he led her north. Ever north. For hours she trudged behind him, until she no longer recognized the lands that she had called her home. By midday, heavy clouds, pregnant with snow, obscured the sun, and the wind blew harder. The glittering dust that had lazily drifted and landed lightly, became fat flakes that began to fall so heavily that she could barely make out the white form in front of her. She stumbled, her feet and fingers numb from the cold, despite being in her warmest dress. Perhaps, she thought dully, this is what happened to all of the girls they took before. They led them north until they froze, bodies tucked beneath a blanket of snow as they slept a dreamless slumber from which they would never awake. There were worse fates than such a fate as that. 

She did not realize the wolf had halted until she was nearly upon him. “You are cold and tired,” he observed. 

“I am,” she said, her voice frozen and thick with exhaustion. “Forgive me. I am afraid that I am not accustomed to making so far a journey on foot. Especially not in a winter storm.” 

“Then you shall walk no further,” he said, and she trembled, fearing that this was to be her end. “Ride.” He commanded as he knelt before her so that she could climb onto his back. “Hold tight to my coat,” he ordered. “And you shall have nothing to fear. Not from me nor the other creatures of this land.” 

His fur was soft and thick and warm, and she buried her hands and face in it, feeling her body thaw from the heat of his. She had expected that he would smell like the dogs in her father’s kennel, but wilder, and though a woodsy scent hung over him, it was not the rank musk of a beast, but wood smoke and green pines and fresh snow. His gait was smooth as he ran, her added weight not slowing his pace, and she felt her eyelids grow heavy as her body rocked to the rhythm of his run.

She woke, roused by his sudden stillness. “Where are we?” she said dreamily, her voice thick with sleep. The sun was just beginning to stretch its rays above the horizon, and in the dim early morning light, she could make out little of the bleak landscape in which she now found herself. 

“We are far in the North, in the lands of always winter.”

“Beyond the wall?” she asked, dismounting, her legs stiff from the night of riding, leaning against him for support. But they couldn’t be that far, for it was a many days ride to reach the wall that had once separated her father’s lands from the wild men and beasts that dwelled on the other side. Beyond the wall was a place of danger and magic, where only the exceedingly brave or exceedingly foolish dared to venture.

“Well beyond.”

“But we have not been traveling near long enough to cover so great a distance.”

“Some things in this world defy understanding. Many of them roam these lands.” His voice softened, at her startled expression. Although she had preferred stories of love and romance, knights and their ladies, Arya and Bran has wanted to hear of the monsters that lived to the in the far North, grumpkins and snarks, ice spiders and giants, and so, as a child, she had heard enough of those tales to make her blood run cold now. “But you have nothing to fear from them. You are under my protection and no harm will come to you. This is my home, and it will be yours as well.”

“Forgive me. But my home shall always be Winterfell,” she said stiffly, not wanting to insult the beast who had already shown her so much kindness and courtesy, and yet unable to suppress the wave of grief that engulfed her at the thought of all that she had left behind. Her father and mother, brothers and sister, the servants, the castle itself--the corridors she would never walk again, the great hall where her father held feasts that she would never attend again, the room that had once been hers but that she would never see again, the bed, with its soft pillows and warm fur blankets, in which she would never sleep another night. She felt suffocated by all that she had left behind, the only world she had ever known and which was no longer to be hers. 

“As you please,” he looked at her, and she thought she read sadness in the wolf’s grey eyes. “Though I hope that one day you may come to see things differently.” 

He approached the cliff, and knocked on it with his paw. A door, that had been indistinguishable from the rocks mere moments before, swung open. “Please, daughter of Winterfell,” the wolf said, “Come in from the cold.” And she followed him past the cliff face into what appeared to be a sumptuously appointed castle. 

She loved Winterfell. It was her home and she would miss it terribly, desperately, everyday she was here. But compared to the hall that the wolf led her to, the castle of her youth seemed a hovel. The walls were covered with rich and heavy tapestries, featuring scenes from songs she did not know. And torches blazed, their lights reflected off of gold and silver. 

When she turned, the door had disappeared. “Am I a prisoner here?” she asked warily. 

“No.”

“I am free to go?”

The wolf’s expression looked almost pained. “No. I fear you must remain within the walls of this castle.”

“Then I am a prisoner.”

“You shall not be forced into anything against your will while you are here. You may go anywhere in the palace you choose.”

“I thank you for treating me with kindness,” she said, her voice steady, her face a blank mask. “But a gilded cage is still a cage. No matter how it glimmers.”

“I am truly sorry, lady,” the wolf said, bowing. “I too know something of cages, pretty and otherwise, and it pains me to have led you into one. Please, if you have need of anything, ring that bell,” he said, inclining his head toward a small silver bell resting on a carved oak table. “You have only to voice your request and if it is within the powers of this place it shall be done.”

“Where will you be?” she asked tentatively. 

“During the day, I am afraid that I will often be away.”

“Where do you go?”

“Where I must to keep these lands safe.” 

“And at night?” she asked. 

“At night I shall not be far.” The wolf shifted uneasily, his tail lowering. “I regret that I must leave you now. Everything you see here, everything I have is yours. Take the bell and use it as you will.” The wolf bowed his head and padded down the hall, leaving Sansa alone in this palace, this prison, from which she knew she would never leave. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each room was as richly furnished as the first she had entered with the wolf. There was a great hall, so large she was sure it could fit a thousand guests, and a room that was all gold and mirrors. Light played through it, glinting off of the silver of the glass, gilded decorations gleaming, dozens of candles burning, and she wondered whose job it was to keep them all lit. In another room, the air was heavy, humid with the heat of the hot springs that bubbled forth from a pool in its center. It was really not so much a room as a cavern, lit by blazing torches, the walls hewn from natural stone. She paused for a moment in that room, thinking of home, of the springs in the Godswood, the hours she had spent there with Arya and her mother and the other ladies of the court. But then she made herself press forward to avoid thinking any more of such things. Memories of home would only make her miss it the more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating this. Now that all the classes I am teaching this semester are prepared for online delivery and my prospectus is submitted, I should be able to post on a regular schedule (though I am still working out what that schedule will be). Thank you for your patience and enjoy.

Sansa slipped the silver bell into her pocket, and, unsure of what else to do, she began to wander through the corridors of this foreign place, this strange castle, that was now, if the white wolf was to be believed, hers. Her cage, she thought bitterly, for all his pretty words and his sad, kind eyes. Still, she thought it best to learn what she could about this palace, these rooms where she would be imprisoned to pay her family’s debts of old. 

Each room was as richly furnished as the first she had entered with the wolf. There was a great hall, so large she was sure it could fit a thousand guests, and a room that was all gold and mirrors. Light played through it, glinting off of the silver of the glass, gilded decorations gleaming, dozens of candles burning, and she wondered whose job it was to keep them all lit. In another room, the air was heavy, humid with the heat of the hot springs that bubbled forth from a pool in its  center. It was really not so much a room as a cavern, lit by blazing torches, the walls hewn from natural stone. She paused for a moment in that room, thinking of home, of the springs in the Godswood, the hours she had spent there with Arya and her mother and the other ladies of the court. But then she made herself press forward to avoid thinking any more of such things. Memories of home would only make her miss it the more.

She walked for hours, passing through sitting rooms and armories, solars and pantries, dungeons and bed chambers, going up and down winding staircases, never reaching the end of the place. She passed through a hall guarded by a row of armor and a room with a stock of swords that Robb and Arya and Theon would have loved to get their hands on and a wardrobe full of silk and satin, furs and linen that put her practical wool riding dress to shame. She nearly stopped to change, to dress in one of the lovely garments, but, not knowing who they belonged to, she resisted and continued on. She almost lost her way in the winding undercroft, where casks of beer and wine were piled nearly to its vaulted ceiling. There was a corridor lined with portraits, hundreds of eyes staring down at her as she walked past, some kind, some cruel, some handsome and some exceedingly ugly, and she wondered who these lords and ladies could possibly be. She tried to remember the history lessons Maester Luwin had given her, but they seemed to have gone quite out of her head. 

When she discovered a glass garden, which, she assumed, served as a courtyard, protected from the frozen wind of the far North, she was certain that she had emerged from within the cliff, but she passed next into a large hall, she grew unsure. There was no logic to the layout of this castle, the placement of rooms seemingly random. 

She was struck, too, by the emptiness of the palace, for in all her wandering, she did not meet another soul. In one of the larger rooms, she called out a greeting, but the only response she heard was that of her own voice echoing back to her through the cavernous space. Yet the rooms were all clean, free of cobwebs and dust, and she was certain that it would take an army of servants to maintain so vast a place, to attend to so many rooms. There were kitchens, too, with bread baking, meats roasting, and stews bubbling, but there was no sign of cooks or bakers or scullery maids. She hoped to come across someone, anyone, but as well as she could tell, she was the only living person in this endless castle.

Eventually, she found a library. A huge room full of towers of books and piles of scroll, shelf after shelf of tomes. She lingered there awhile, scanning the titles, some stories were old favorites, but there were many of which she had never heard. She ran her fingers over their spines, relieved that she would, at the very least, have tales to keep her company in this place.

She tried to retrace her steps to get her bearings, but it was as if the rooms had shifted and she could not find her way. She wandered, sometimes going in circles, sometimes returning to the same room over and over and over again, unsure of how she got there. Eventually, she grew weary of her wandering and frustrated at her lack of progress. Her sense of direction was completely muddled in this place, no doubt due to whatever enchantment--for she was certain now that the palace was enchanted--had been put on it. She passed through room after room after room, her heart racing, her breathing shallow, fearing that she had survived the journey north only to perish lost in these halls, and she wished, thinking of the stories that Old Nan used to tell, that she had a thread or a pocket full of breadcrumbs to mark her way. 

It was only then that she remembered what she did have in her pocket, and she pulled out the silver bell the wolf had given her. He had told her that it would answer her every need, so she rang it tentatively, it’s clear tone cutting cheerily through the silence of the great hall she stood in. “I would like to go to my room please,” she said, her voice wavering just a bit, unsure of what to expect. But almost instantly, there was a small golden light before her. It seemed to brighten for a moment, as if, she imagined, in greeting, and then began to float down the hall. She stood, transfixed, and it halted and flared again, though Sansa was unsure if it meant to communicate impatience or reassurance. Uneasily, she moved toward it and it dipped slightly, before drifting forward.

The light led her through the palace, until she reached a pair of ornately carved doors which she did not remember coming across during her endless winding through the castle’s labyrinthine halls. Sansa stood before them for a moment before opening one and the light winked out, apparently satisfied that it had fulfilled her request. 

The room was as elegantly appointed as the rest of the palace. Thick tapestries adorned the walls, depicting scenes of myth and legends, the honorable kings and just queens of old, the heroic knights and beautiful maidens of songs, and all manner of fearsome magical creatures. A soft carpet covered the cold stones of the castle floor and a fire burned merrily in the hearth, warmth filling the space. Before it sat an ornately carved table flanked by two matching chairs. And in the center of the chamber was a large four post bed, thick blue curtains hung around it; its blankets white and pillows grey. She flung herself onto the mattress, sinking into the soft bedding. It was far more luxurious than her bed in Winterfell, but still she missed her room, her family, her home. This castle in the cliff was magical and beautiful and grand, but it could not make up for all that she had given up and left behind when she followed the white wolf north.

She felt a sob shudder through her chest, and all of the tears that she had repressed since the figure of the wolf had emerged from the wood flowed from of her, a tide that once unleashed she had no power to stop. She had done her best to be as brave as the maidens in stories, to accept her fate, to preserve her family’s honor, to do what she must for her people. But now that the exploring were at an end and she was, she supposed safely, sequestered in her room, which felt like a prison no matter what the wolf claimed, she no longer cared about fate or bravery or honor or adventure, she was just a girl very far from a home to which she could never return and mourning the family, the life, the past, that she had lost and afraid for what her future might hold. 

Sansa did not know how long she cried, the flood of tears slowed to a trickle, her nose stuffed and her head aching. The candle in her room had burned out and even the embers of the fire had grown black and cold, and she huddled in the dark in the middle of her massive bed. 

The knock on the door, when it came, startled her. “Come in,” she called, her voice more croak than command, her throat raw from crying. She answered automatically, expecting that it was a servant, a lady’s maid, to ready her for sleep. She still wore the dress she had donned to leave Winterfell, now rumpled and travelled stained from the long journey.

The door opened slowly, and she saw the silhouette of a man, but she could not decipher his features. He was not very tall, she realized, but he still struck her as powerfully built, his shoulders were broad and well muscled. “Forgive me for intruding, my lady. I am the master of this place,” he said, closing the door softly behind him. “I hope that you have found your room to your liking.”

“The accommodations are very fine. Thank you, my lord.” Her voice was tight. She had been such a fool to bid him enter, a man should not visit a lady in her chambers, not one to whom he was not wed. 

“Have you been crying, lady?” he said, his voice full of gentle concern.

Sansa thought for a moment of lying—she was a daughter of Winterfell, and she should not let this lord see her cry—but her voice had betrayed her tears. “Yes,” she said quietly, and then continued quickly, remembering her septa’s lessons on courtesy and the protection it could give. “It is not from any lack of hospitality, I assure you. It is just that…” she trailed off. “My family. My home. I miss them.”

“I would expect so. You have no need to justify your tears to me. But I do entreat you that if there is anything I might do to assuage them, please do not hesitate to ring the bell or ask me personally.” He took another step into the room. “May I sit beside you?”

Sansa trembled, her fears about his intentions confirmed. There was only one reason why a man might enter a lady’s chamber, and Sansa had heard the songs of nighttime trysts, concealed under cover of darkness, had heard, despite her mother’s attempts to shield her from such knowledge, of women taking lords and knights, to whom they were not wed, not even betrothed, into their beds. And she knew, with a deepening sense of dread why the wolf had brought her to this place, and what service she would be expected to perform for his master. Is this what those men of old had promised? A daughter to defile. She was not just to be a prisoner, but a concubine, a whore. He would use her, ruin her, and there was naught she could do to prevent it, to save the honor that his desire would rip from her. For what power did she have to refuse, what choice did she have but to let him take what he would of her? She had thought that she had given everything she could, her life, her liberty, her home, to pay her family’s debts, but it seemed that there was yet more for him to take. 

“Yes, my lord,” she said stiffly but politely. She was in his power here, so she did her best to hide her dread. “But, please,” she continued, struggling to keep her voice steady. “Be gentle.” She paused and then admitted, the blood rushing to her cheeks, “I am a maid.” 

He chuckled softly and took another step into the room. “I have not come here for your maidenhead, lady. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Something about the words, the tone of his voice, struck her. “I know your voice.” She paused, and then spoke slowly, reluctantly, knowing what a fool she sounded, but convinced that she was right. “You are the wolf?” 

“Aye. He is the form I must wear during the day,” he settled beside her on the bed, as respectable a distance as possible for so intimate a setting. “At night, I can cast that skin aside.”

“But that’s impossible,” she said, incredulity making her bold. “That sort of thing only happens in stories.”

“You will find, lady, that many seemingly impossible things are quite possible within these walls.”

She wanted to protest, but she had spent the day wandering the halls of this place, and she knew his words to be true. “Then, what are you, man or beast?” she asked softly. 

He laughed again, a low rich sound. “That, I believe, shall be for you to determine.” 

“What happened to you?”

“Would that I could tell you, lady. But, alas, I cannot. Just as I cannot explain the favor I must beg of you. In three days time, I will come to you again and I will request to spend the night beside you. I will not touch you, that I swear to you by your father’s gods and older things, and I will share your bed in sleep only. I cannot tell you why, nor can I allow you to look upon me in this form. It is an odd request, and an improper one for a man to make of a lady, I know, but I fear I must make it all the same. My fate depends on your answer, and I hope that you will see it in your heart to pity me and agree to my request.” He stood. “I will leave you now to consider. And I will come to you in three nights to learn of your decision.”

“Wait,” Sansa called as he moved toward the door. “Why can’t you tell me?”

He made a pained sound, not unlike a whimper. “She won’t let me,” he said, his voice strained. “The curse,” he continued, each syllable costing him dearly.

“Is this what happened to the others? The other women of my house. The ones who also followed a white wolf north.” 

“Yes,” he said, a note of sadness in his voice.

“And what did they decide?” 

“They refused,” he said. “As was their right.” 

“Could they not have been forced?” 

He paused for a moment. “To do such a thing… it would not matter what form one took, he would surely be a beast. No, the choice was theirs to make, just as it is yours. Goodnight, lady. May sweet dreams visit your slumber.” And with that, he shut the door behind her, leaving her with her thoughts and his request, hanging heavy in the air above her. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That night, Sansa could not sleep. She tossed and turned in the large, comfortable bed, unable to quiet her thoughts. Her first instinct, of course, was to do as the others had done, had been wise to do, and refuse the young lord’s request. It was not proper for a woman to welcome any man who was not her husband into her bed, whether he planned to do nothing more than sleep or no. If she invited him to spend his nights with her she would be ruined. She had little left but her honor, and now he requested that she relinquish that as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your very kind comments on the last chapter. It was a tough week, for all of us I'm sure, and your generosity made it a little easier to get through. 
> 
> Thanks also to SaraStarbuck for betaing! <3

That night, Sansa could not sleep. She tossed and turned in the large, comfortable bed, unable to quiet her thoughts. Her first instinct, of course, was to do as the others had done, had been wise to do, and refuse the young lord’s request. It was not proper for a woman to welcome any man who was not her husband into her bed, whether he planned to do nothing more than sleep or no. If she invited him to spend his nights with her she would be ruined. She had little left but her honor, and now he requested that she relinquish that as well. 

But he had been courteous and kind to her. He could force his way into her room, into her bed, and do much worse--things daren’t let herself consider--but he refused to do so. This palace was his, and, if he were determined to enter, there was nothing she could do to bar him from her chambers. Locked doors could only keep him from her for so long, and given the enchantments of this place, she doubted that doors could be locked at all. He had to know that, and yet he asked her permission to enter. Her heart softened as she thought of the pain and sadness in his voice. Perhaps it would not be so bad a thing to return some of the kindness that he had shown her. 

Besides, if she shamed herself within these walls, who would there be to tell her tale? She was completely alone here in these wild lands of the North. There did not even seem to be servants to gossip and spread the story of her ruin. 

The hours passed, and she shivered, pulling the blankets more tightly around her. She wished for a fire, but in the darkness of the unfamiliar room, she was uncertain how, for all her fumbling, she might produce a flame. Then she remembered the bell, still in her pocket, and she took it out and rang it. “I would like a fire, please?” she asked into the darkness, and she had barely finished her request when, in the stone hearth, a blaze shot to light. She got up from the bed, dragging the warm white blanket on the floor behind her and settled in a chair before the fire to warm herself and stare into the flames dancing in the grate, tongues licking against the blackened stones, finally lulling her to sleep. 

She woke with a start, the blanket half flung off of her, her skin slick with sweat, her head pounding. She stood, the room having grown quite warm from the still roaring fire, too warm for a fur blanket and a wool dress. She felt sticky and uncomfortable, so she rang the bell again. “I would like a bath, please,” she said into the empty room. “And if you wouldn’t mind laundering this blanket. Oh, and I suppose that I will need a dress or something to wear once I am clean.” In an instant, a bathtub appeared, full of fragrant steaming water, the blanket disappeared, and the door of an armoire flung open, revealing a row of finely made dresses. 

She stripped off the dress she had been wearing, throwing it into a corner of the room; she would have to request that the invisible servants--or whatever manner of magic or creatures it was who did her bidding-- in this place launder it.

The bath was soothing and warm as she slid into it, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the steam, the light scent of honey, lavender, and lemons that perfumed the water. She leaned back in the tub, wishing that she had an attendant to run a comb through her hair like the servants used to do at home. But here, alas, it seemed that she was fated to be ever alone, unless she agreed to spend nights with a man whose name she did not even yet know and whose face she would never see. Thinking about her visitor, about the request he had made of her, hurt her head, and she resolved not to dwell on him again until she was out of the bath. 

She stayed in the tub until her fingers and toes were wrinkled and the water had cooled to an uncomfortable temperature. She rose and dried herself, plaiting her hair into a wet braid as she made her way over to the armoire. She longed to put the clothing that she had worn from Winterfell back on, for that was all she still had of her home. But her dress was travel stained and sweat soaked, and it would not do to wear it, even if there were none here to see what a mess it had become. So, reluctantly, she pulled on a shift, made of a delicate and airy linen, before selecting a simple light blue dress made of beautifully woven cambric. It fit her perfectly, she grudgingly admitted to herself, better even then the dresses she had worn at home, for which she had been measured and fitted and fussed over. Still, now matter how lovely the gown, she missed the dresses of her home--the ones that she and her mother and the septa had sat together and sewn--no matter how inferior they were. At least they were hers in a way that this finery never would be. 

Her stomach grumbled loudly, and she realized that she had not eaten since leaving Winterfell the day before. Or, rather, two days, she corrected herself, worried that she was already losing time in this castle without a sun, day and night indistinguishable within the mountain. She rang the silver bell and requested breakfast, a tray laden with fruits, cheeses, meats, breads, and pastries appearing instantly before her. She forced herself to eat slowly, savoring the rich meat, the flakey pastry, the sweet berries. I was delicious, and she wondered where it had come from and how it had come to her room, what sort of magic dwelled within these halls. 

Once she had eaten her fill, her head-ache subsided slightly. Sansa looked warrily around the room. If the wolf lord were to be believed, her days were to be her own. But how was she to fill them? At Winterfell, she had lessons with Septa Mordane, embroidery with the ladies, following her mother around while she taught her the finer points of domestic management which would one day be her responsibility as the lady of her lord husband’s castle, presiding over his household. But here, there was no Septa to mind, or ladies to keep her company, no mother to shadow, not even a little sister to quarrel with. She thought of Arya; her adventurous spirit would render her so much better suited for this life. She could see her sister, scampering through the hallways, uncovering secret passages, dueling against shadows. Arya would know how to answer the lord’s request, though the thought of her sister forced to share a bed with any man not of her choosing made Sansa’s stomach clench. No, better that she was here rather than her sister. As much as she resented being brought to this place, better that she be the one to endure than to be safe at home, as Arya was now, imagining what horrors her sister was suffering. Her father used to joke that his daughters were as different from one another as the sun and the moon, but for all their rows and despite how strange and annoying she found her, Sansa loved her little sister dearly. 

But such paths of thought were not good for her to follow, and her heart ached for missing her family and her home. “If I do not do something, I shall go mad,” she said. She tried to take inspiration from her sister, who was fearless, sometimes foolishly so, in all things, and she opened the door of her room and slipped out into the corridor. 

She did not have a destination in mind, which was fortunate, she supposed, because she was still lost within the labyrinth of the castle’s halls. She remembered some of the rooms she entered from her previous day’s wandering, but others she was certain that she had never set foot in before. When she came to the portrait gallery again, she paused, spending more time looking over the faces that stared, unblinking, back at her. 

“I wonder,” she said, stopping before a group of portraits clustered together toward the end of the hall, “is your face here?” She puzzled over the features of a man with hair so blond it seemed to shine silver and a rather pinched and haughty expression. “I hope not,” she murmured, as she moved past the image of a young woman, her face framed by similar silvery blond hair, violet eyes beautiful and burning, her expression fierce. Beside her was the portrait of another man with pale hair, more handsome than the first, his face kinder, softer. He wore black plate armour despite the fact that, to Sansa at least, his expression seemed more that of a poet than a warrior. Next to him was a woman, her hair a rich brown, her eyes a cool grey, with a wild lovieness about her. She looked up from the bouquet of winter roses that she held, clasped in both hands, her eyes wide, lips slightly parted, as though the artist had startled her. The next portrait was a youth with dark unruly curls and a pleasant face, and Sansa found herself lingering over his likeness, contemplating his mournful expression and wondering what in his life had made him so sad. 

At last, Sansa found the library, and after looking through the books, she selected one to bring back to her room. It was a story she had never heard of before, the tale of a noble king and his knights, and their quests and the battles they had fought and maidens they had saved and their table made of stone. She had always loved the stories of knights, their honor and chivalry, the ladies they had pledged their chaste hearts to. She wished desperately for a knight, for a man who was brave and gentle and strong, and who might face the wilderness and dangers of the land beyond the walls, break down the stone doors to this enchanted castle, navigate the maze of its halls, and charge into her room to lead her to freedom and safety and the protection of his embrace, for, of course, they would wed. But such stuff was only the things of stories and Sansa knew she could expect no rescue here. She was a foolish girl to hope for it. Better to stick to the stories in books than to dream her own that would never come to pass. 

She spent the next two days reading, trying not to think about the third night and what her answer would be. When she was tired, she slept, and when she was hungry, she requested food, and she lost track of time sitting sequestered in her room with heroes made of words as her only company. 

Sansa was in her bed, reading about Jonquil and her love, Florin, a knight dressed in motley but with a soul truer than any other. It was one of her favorite stories, one that she had always requested Old Nan tell, in spite of Arya, who preferred stories with more sword fighting and less romance. As she turned the page, the candle and fire went out and there was a single knock on the carved oaken doors of her room. Dressed in only her shift, Sansa blushed, pulling the bed covers fully around her before calling out for the lord to enter. 

He opened the door slowly, and then entered the room, and strain though she might, she could not make out his features. He closed her door before speaking. “My lady,” he said, stiffy, awkwardly. “I hope that you have found this castle to your liking.” 

“It is a very fine place, my lord,” she responded, managing to keep the quake from her voice. “If a bit lonesome.” 

“My apologies, Daughter of Winterfell, that I cannot offer you better company. This place, it was not always as you see it now.” He paused. “I trust you have had time to consider my request.” 

“I have,” she said, though truth be told, she had avoided thinking about it as much as possible as the days passed. Still, the question had turned through her mind, and some minutes she was certain of one answer, while in others, she was sure that she could answer in no way other than its opposite. “It was good of you, my lord, to give me time to contemplate my response.” 

“Of course, my lady. And have you your answer?”

“I do.” 

He took a deep breath before proceeding. “And what have you decided?”

“I will honor your request.” She heard him exhale a soft sigh of relief. “So long as you honor mine.” 

“If it is in my power,” he said solemnly, “whatever you ask shall be yours, my lady.” 

“I would like you to swear that you shall not touch me.” 

“I have already made that promise. I shall do nothing to dishonor you.” 

“I want you to swear it again,” she said, surprised at the force, the power she managed to muster to her voice. 

“Then I swear it. A thousand times, I swear it to all the gods of these wild lands, I shall never touch you.”

“Thank you.” 

“Have you nothing else to ask of me, my lady?”

“Nothing. Unless you can grant me leave of this place,” she said quietly, a futile request, she knew from the moment she made it, but one that had to be made all the same. For she still clung to the hope, no matter how slight, that she one day might be allowed to her home.

“Sadly, I cannot. But if I ever have the means to do so, I shall see you home. You have my word,” he said, his voice soft and earnest and she believed him. 

“I thank you for that.”

“Truly, I wish I could do more.” 

“If it were as easy as wishing, my lord, I would be in my bed in Winterfell.” She felt the heat rise to her cheekings, knowing that she would never again return to that bed, knowing that she would be sharing this one with a stranger. 

He paused before speaking again, as if he perceived her embarrassment. “May I join you, my lady?” he said. She moved to what was to be her side of the bed, as far from the man as possible, who settled on his, above the covers, she was relieved to note. 

They lay in silence for a few minutes before she felt him shift on the bed. “What caused you to agree?” he said softly into the darkness. 

She swallowed, unsure herself about why she had decided to go against everything she had learned about being a lady and had let him share her bed. “I have little power here, my lord,” she said. “I cannot leave, my days are empty, I cannot even manage to navigate this castle. It seems to me, that the only true power I had was that which you had given me: to either assist you or refuse you. My father taught me that those who have power should wield it to help, not hurt, people. So that is what I have done.” 

He was quiet for a long minute, and Sansa, for a moment, feared that he might have fallen asleep during her words. “Your father sounds like he is a good man.” 

“He is.” 

“I will try to be worthy of him. And of you, my lady,” he said, and those were the last words that either of them spoke into the black night of the room. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every night it was the same and every morning, he was gone when she awoke and she was forced to pass another day alone.

His visits, if nothing more, gave some structure to her otherwise shapeless days and helped her to keep track of them as they passed, one after the other after the other, monotonous, without beginning or end. 

Every night, the candles and the fire flickered out, and with the darkness, he arrived. Every night he knocked once and did not cross the threshold of her room until she bid him enter. Every night he requested to join her, and only once she had consented, would he settle on, what was now, his side of the bed. Every night, he inquired how her day had been, asked if there was anything she had need of; she would respond that it was satisfactory and thank him for his hospitality. Then a silence would grow in the darkness between them until they both fell asleep. 

Every night it was the same and every morning, he was gone when she awoke and she was forced to pass another day alone.

He never strayed from his side of the bed, while Sansa remained huddled on the edge of hers, her back to him. He kept his word and never attempted to touch her and she silently thanked him for that. Still, she was uncomfortable with both the intimacy of the ritual and how distant he was. She let him into her bed, heard the soft noises of his dreams, his quiet snores, and yet she knew nothing of him. Not even his name, she realized dully one day. Though he slept beside her, he was a stranger. 

Part of her was determined to maintain the distance between them, the chasm that made this ritual endurable, that allowed her to ignore the slight movements of the mattress as he shifted, turned in his sleep, his murmured sighs as he stretched, that let her pretend that she was as alone in the bed as she was the rest of her day. It was best not to learn his name, the details of his life, the things that would make him real, not just some figment of her imagination, a ghost that haunted her chambers at night. It was better to think of him as a phantom, shapeless and insubstantial, from a realm that was not her own.

Still, she could not completely repress the wish for something more, the lonelier parts of her that after nearly two weeks in this place wanted some companionship, someone to talk to, someone to fill the endless silence she endured. She had never realized how noisy Winterfell had been, how full of life, the laughter and clamber of her siblings racing through the halls, the clang of swords as the men at arms practiced in the yards, the gossip and giggles of the chambermaids as they went about their work, the barking dogs in the kennels and the soft whinnies of horses in her stalls, the chiming of the bells to mark the hour. But here the empty halls were filled with a silence broken only by her shoes upon the stone. 

So, she found herself looking forward to his knock, to the brief conversation, the rote questions and answers that preceded their sleep. Because it was, at least, something to remind her that her existence was not entirely solitary, that there was at least one other person from whose society she had not been removed completely, that she had not been exiled to a life in which she was utterly alone.

She thought of him often during the course of her day, her curiosity about his curse, nearly driving her mad. She did not ask him about it, knew he could not answer her if she did, but she invented her own histories, her own stories about what had happened to saddle him with such a fate. In his youth, had he denied a sorceress hospitality? Had he spurned the love of a witch? Stolen some enchanted treasure? Had he eaten some cursed fruit or made a wish that had gone wrong or agreed to a deal from which he could not escape? Or perhaps, it had been no fault of his at all, perhaps one of his ancestors, like her own, had sacrificed him for their benefit, for riches or power or love or a child that would pass the curse to his child and to his child after that, generation after generation forced to live as man and beast until the spell that bound them to that form, that fate, was broken. 

She called upon the magical light that she had summoned the first day as guide, for she had learned that the surest way to navigate the shifting halls of the palace was to ask the light to lead her where she wished to go. It was far more reliable than her sense of direction, and, if truth be told, she began to view it as company, perhaps the only companionship she would have to fill her days. She noted how swirled around her upon first appearing, the way that it seemed to eagerly race off to some locations, while moving slowly, lethargically, its light dim, to others, as though it did not want to go. When she asked it to stay with her during one of her trips to the glass gardens, it glowed brighter, as though pleased by her request. 

“I wish I knew your name,” she said one day. She would feel incredibly foolish talking to it, except that she could have sworn that it blinked, as though in confused response. “Or perhaps, I could give you one?” It floated up and down, excitedly she thought. “How about Aiduz,” she said, recalling her lessons in the Old Tongue that her father had insisted she learn, though no one had spoken it for a thousand years or more, and the light blazed so that she had to look away. 

She scoured the library, which had become a usual haunt of hers, looking for an old history or diary, anything to tell her what had happened here, but her searches came up empty, for though she found many stories, none were of him.

Her curiosity and Aiduz also led her back to the portrait gallery and she found herself spending hours staring at the faces there, wondering if one of them belonged to him. The room was long and there were dozens of faces, some framed in gold, others in silver, but she studied each carefully, for what more did she have to do with her days? At night during their brief conversations, she thought of the different men hanging in that hall, tried them on with his voice, fair hair and dark, blue eyes or brown, full lips and thin, tried to picture the man with whom she shared her bed but nothing more.

One day, she asked the light to lead her to the chambers of the master of place. She knew that it was wrong, a violation of the courtesy and respect that he had so kindly shown to her, that Septa Mordane would scold her terribly if she knew the breach of etiquette she contemplated. Her lady mother, too, would disapprove, for a lady to enter a lord’s chamber was a scandal and she had raised her daughter better than that. Even Aiduz seemed to hesitate for a moment, blinking a few times, as if unsure if it might take her where she wished, as if giving her the chance to rescind the request. 

But, here, in the wild north, she was beyond etiquette and scandal and besides, did he not enter her chambers every evening? Though not without asking your leave, a voice that she quickly hushed, reminded her. 

“Please, don’t judge me,” she said to the light, and it took pity on her and acquiesced, even if its movements were a bit sluggish as it led her down the hall. 

When Aiduz stopped in front of a pair of heavy, dark oak panels, Sansa pushed open the door and aside her reservations, entering the room, looking back at the light that lingered in the doorway, refusing to cross the threshold. His bedchamber was smaller than she expected, and while the other rooms in the castle were richly adorned, this one was relatively bare, spartan, the room of a soldier, not a lord. The stone walls were bare of tapestries, and a simple table and two chairs stood before the fireplace. The bed in the center of the room was large and neatly made, though Sansa knew that it had been unused for many nights. He had no need for bed when he slept in hers.

She inhaled deeply, and she knew that smell, of snow and pine, and something underneath, something wilder, that lingered in her bed in the morning, one of the only signs that he was ever there at all.

Her eyes were drawn to the only piece of ornament in the rooms, a silver hand mirror that lay on the table. It seemed a strange thing for a man, especially one who lived in such bare quarters, to have, and she ran her fingers over it, wondering about the countenance, the face that she would never see, that peered into its depths. 

There was a wardrobe in the corner, plain and unadorned, and she thought for a moment of opening it. But she could not bring herself to do so. She should not be here, had already violated his privacy enough, and she hurried out of the room, hoping she could forget that she had ventured to this place, and asking Aiduz to take her somewhere, anywhere, else. 

That night she worried that the keen senses of the wolf might betray her indiscretion, that he might somehow scent the faint traces of honey, lavender, and lemon that her presence left behind. But if he did, if he had such abilities, he said nothing of it, which only worked to make the vines of her guilt grow, twisting around her, and each moment that passed in which she said nothing to him made it less likely that she would. She wished desperately that she had not gone to his rooms, for she had learned nothing of him from the venture, and she did not care for what she had learned about herself. 

Some nights later--Sansa did not know how many exactly for she had lost track of the lonely procession of her days-- he knocked on the door as he always did once the lights in the room were extinguished, and she called out, “You may enter, my lord.” 

She heard the door open and shut softly behind him, his quiet steps on the carpet of her room. 

“May I lie beside you, my lady?” he asked once he had reached the side of her bed, as he had every night since she had agreed to his strange request. 

“You may,” she replied, exactly as she had previous nights. 

“I hope you had a pleasant day,” he said, and she felt the mattress shift slightly beneath his weight as he settled down. 

“I did. Thank you, my lord.” 

“And you will let me know if there is anything else I can provide for you?” 

“I will. Your hospitality has been most generous.” 

That was all, the barest scraps of conversation that Sansa found herself clinging to throughout the day, playing over again and again in her mind if only to hear the echo of another human voice. She shifted in the bed, restless and unable to find a comfortable position, and then opened her mouth to speak. “And how was your day, my lord?” she said into the darkness. 

She had never asked him about his day and he did not answer immediately. She feared that he had already drifted into sleep, though she did not hear the rhythmic breathing to which she had grown accustomed. 

She heard him exhale wearily. “My day was difficult, my lady,” he said softly. “As they so often are.”

She rolled over to face him, though she could not make out his form in the darkness, for it seemed rude, somehow to speak with him while her back was turned. “I...I didn’t know,” she said. “I am sorry to hear that.” 

“It is no fault of yours, I assure you.” He sighed, and she heard him shift as well. “These are wild lands, a place of great magic and power. It is my duty to protect them from the evil that would take root here.” 

“Old Nan, one of the servants at Winter-- at home,” she corrected herself, reminding both herself and him, that, though she was forced to dwell within these walls, her heart remained in the castle of her youth, “used to tell us legends of all sorts of monsters and other beastly things that lived beyond the wall. Ice spiders and giants and other monsters that prowl in the night. When we didn’t mind her or our parents, she would tell us that naughty children were sent beyond the wall for the grumpkins and snarks.” 

He laughed, a rich, deep sound and Sansa found herself wishing that she might hear him laugh like that again. “I am afraid that I have not had to battle any grumpkins or snarks, and the noble race of giants are almost all but extinct. But I took an oath to shield the realms of men from the dangers that lurk here. It is part of an old bargain, sworn in blood.” His voice became cold. “There are dark things that live in the land of always winter.” He paused. “But none you need fear. So long as you are under my protection, you are safe here.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You have no need to give me thanks. It was I who brought you here. It is my duty to protect you.” 

“Why did you bring me here?” she said, the conversation making her feel suddenly bold enough to ask the question that had been plaguing her these weeks. 

“I wish that I could tell you. But I am bound, and she,” he paused, “she prevents me from speaking of it. Just please know that had there been another way, I would have spared you.” And though she could not read his face, she knew from his voice that he meant it.

“Let us speak no more of it,” she said softly. “For it is a topic that seems to cause great pain to both of us. I wish you sweet dreams, my lord.” 

“And I you, lady. Sleep well. No grumpkins or snarks shall bother you.” 

Sansa knew she should turn around, sleep with her back to him, but she had only just found a comfortable position, so she drifted off to sleep without moving, a small smile on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and to everyone who has taken the time to comment. Thanks also and always to SaraStarkbuck for betaing. 
> 
> A quick note about the name "Aiduz." Martin has provided us with very few words in the Old Tongue, and the language was not developed for the show. However, from the language history of the Westeros, I have aligned with Old Tongue with the Celtic languages that were displaced by the Germanic of the Angles and Saxons (in a similar way that the invasion of the Andals brought the Common Tongue). The name "Aiduz" is derived from "Aidu-" the Proto-Celtic term for "fire." Hope that works!


	5. Chapter 5

The next night when he asked her about her day she told him that she had spent it in the library. “I think it is my favorite room in the entire castle,” she said. “I spend most of my time there. When I am not here, I mean.” 

“I am glad that there is someone here who can enjoy it. I am afraid that I have neglected it more than I should.”

A small laugh escaped her. “You sound like Theon, my father’s ward. The library was always the last place any of us would look for him. Which made it one of the best hiding places in the castle when he was trying to dodge his tutors or a scolding.” She paused. “Do you not read, then, my lord?”

“Not as much as I might like. I was quite bookish as a boy, much to my uncle’s chagrin,” he said, and then chuckled softly. “He always wished I was more of a warrior. Fiercer, like the other boys. When he was feeling especially boorish, he would tell me I was more a worm than a dragon.” He sighed. “It seems he got his wish. My duties have taken me into many fights and far from books. So I am glad that you have found some comfort in the library here.” 

“I have. There is a library at Winterfell, though nothing so grand as the one you have here. I would hide myself away there for hours while my brothers and sister ran wild, driving the servants absolutely mad.” She smiled and her voice warmed at the memory. “I used to sequester myself best I could, but every once in a while they would find me and force me to play their games.” In those days, how she had longed to be alone, to wander through stories uninterrupted by the shouts and demands of her siblings. And now that she had the silence she had so desired, she wanted nothing more than Robb, Theon, and Arya interrupting her with teasing her and baby Rickon pulling on her skirts demanding that she play with him. “They always wanted me to be the princess that needed saving. None of them ever wanted to take on the role.” All those games, she thought as she felt her smile fall, had been good training for the part she was destined to play, the maiden trapped in the castle. Though here she could not hope that Robb, Theon, and Arya would burst into this palace, swinging their wooden swords, to save her.

“Not even your sister?”    


“Arya least of all. She was the most ferocious among them. Nearly feral. Put even our elder brother Robb to shame. She absolutely confounded our Septa, who had no idea what to do with a girl like her.” 

“You must miss them.”

“I do. Very much. But the books, at least, provide some company.”

“I am glad they do.” He paused for a moment.”What kinds of stories do you favor?” 

“Oh those of brave knights and beautiful princesses and true love.” She blushed, thankful that he could not see her in the darkness. “It is silly, I know, but I do so adore them.” 

“I cannot fault you, my lady, for finding enjoyment where you can.” 

“You are kind, my lord. Much kinder than my sister. The stories I like best are not those that show us the world as it is, violent and ugly and full of injustice, but those that show us the possibility of what it might be, if only we were all a little better.” 

“That is very wise, my lady.” 

“It was one way to answer the teasing of my brothers and sister, who dismissed the tales and songs I preferred as nothing more than fairy story nonsense. They always wanted to hear about great battles and all sorts of terrible things.” A silence began to grow between them, and Sansa wished to fill it before it became too vast. “I hope that your day was better than the one before, my lord.” 

“It was. I saw some old allies, friends.” 

“You are friends with those who live beyond the wall?” she asked, unable to keep her questions from betraying the shock she felt. She had heard stories about the men and women who braved the cold, the hardship, the monsters of the land of always winter, occasionally raiding the towns and keeps of her father’s lands. All the tales agreed that they were savages, a rough and violent people, little better than the beasts with whom they shared their home. 

“All are not so bad as the legends say. They are men, like any others. They have just chosen to live as free, unbeholden to lords and kings. They pay a high and dangerous price for it too.” 

“Are you not their lord, then?” 

He chuckled again, and the warmth of it stirred something in her. “I don’t imagine they would take too kindly to me calling myself that. They make use enough of the title, though only when they wish to mock me for it. A wolf who thinks himself a lord of men. An idea worth mocking, don’t you think?”

“They don’t find it strange? That you come to them as a wolf, I mean.” 

“Aye. It’s strange enough to them, I suppose. But they remember the old ways, the magicks of these lands. They have not forgotten the way that those in the south have. And there are stranger things than skin changers that still dwell in the untamed parts of the world.”

“And they consider you a friend?”

“A partner, perhaps. We are fighting against many of the same enemies, and I am fortunate to have them on my side when I have to battle some of the worst. When times are tough, they turn to me for help, for counsel, but they make their own decisions. Live by their own 

ways.” 

“It must be nice,” she said. “To have that kind of freedom.” 

“They pay a high enough price for it.” 

“Those of us who are not free pay a high price as well, my lord, though often not for debts of our own,” she said. 

“You are quite right, lady,” he said. “I am sorry that you are forced to pay mine.” 

“They are not just yours,” she said. “My ancestors agreed to the price.” 

“If I can, I will free you of this place,” he said. “I swear it to you, my lady.” 

“I will dream of it,” she said. 

“Then I hope you sleep well.” 

When she woke up in the morning, Sansa found a book on her night table, a winter rose atop it. She brought the blue blossom to her nose and smelled deeply its perfume. She then picked up the book that he left for her and began to read. 

She read throughout the course of the day, losing herself in the story. She nibbled on the fruits and nuts and cheeses and bread that the bell provided her, turning the pages of the book with one hand as she idly brought the food to her lips with the other. She called for Aiduz to join her, the light buzzing around the room a bit before settling above her, providing stronger and steadier illumination than the candles beside her bed. And it was not until she finished the book, tears streaming down her face, that she got out of the bed and thought to call for a bath. 

When the lord joined her that evening, he asked if she’d had the opportunity to read the book.

“I did, my lord,” she said, her smile beaming through her voice. 

“And what did you think of it? It is an old legend among the Freefolk.”

“It was very romantic, but very sad.”   


“Love so often is.” 

“Well, I cannot say that I care for that sort of ending. Why couldn’t Bael have just stayed with her? If they truly loved each other as much as the story claimed, then why did they need to be separated? Why could they not have been wed?”

“A Wildling king could never marry a lady. Not after he stole her away from her maiden’s bed in her father’s house.” 

“He did not steal her. She loved him and went with him willingly. Why was she not allowed to make her own decisions about who to wed and bed and love.” 

“I am afraid, my lady, that it is simply the way of the world.”

“I know that,” she said, heat rushing to her face. “But it need not be the way of stories.”

“How would you have ended the story?”

“She would plead with her father to let her lover stay. The lords’ heart would be softened by his daughter’s words, her earnest request, and he would accept Bael as his son. Perhaps with Bael there to raise his own boy, there would not have been a stupid war in the first place, and no one would have to be killed, and they all could live happily ever after.” 

“A much more pleasant story, my lady.” 

“A better one,” she countered. 

“A better one,” he agreed. “The world as it could be.” He said, and she thought she heard a smile in his voice.

“Exactly. That is why all the best stories end happily ever after.” 

“I will try to leave you a more satisfactory tale for tomorrow.” 

“Oh, no,” she said. “I enjoyed this one quite a lot. It was very kind of you, my lord, to leave it for me. To think of me.”

“I think of you often, my lady.” He said, his voice deep, and Sansa felt the heat rise in her cheeks once again. “Of your comfort, your wellbeing,” he continued. 

“That is kind of you, my lord,” she said. “And thank you for the rose as well. It is very beautiful and I know the blooms of a winter rose are dear.”

“I am glad that it brought you pleasure, my lady.” 

“It was a comfort to be sure,” she said. 

During the mornings that followed, Sansa grew accustomed to the gifts the lord left for her on her night stand. More books, some happier than the first he selected for her, some just as sad. She devoured the stories inside, and at night, before they fell asleep, he seemed almost eager to hear her opinion of them. No one had ever so valued what she thought. Robb and Theon and even Arya had dismissed her as a silly girl with a head full of fancies. But this lord listened, truly listened, to what she said, unlike so many of those young men who had sat beside her at her father’s table, who had asked her questions out of courtesy and obligation, but had cared little enough how she responded, what she thought. He was different from the others and Sansa wondered if he were not, perhaps, as lonely as she, that perhaps her company meant to him what his had come to mean to her: a repreve, if only for the span of a conversation, from the repressive loneliness of this place. 

He left her other things as well, items that she could have requested from the silver bell, which seemed to have few limits on its resourcefulness, but which meant so much more coming from him. After she mentioned how much she enjoyed sewing and embroidery, he left her fabrics and threads for her to do with what she would. She told him that she had been learning to play the harp, and when she awoke the next morning, one was sitting beside the bed, for it was too large to comfortably fit on the table. She picked it up, running her fingers over the strings, evoking bright, pure notes. The wood was beautifully crafted and ornately carved, much finer than the instrument she had practiced on in Winterfell. She clutched it to her chest, and then reached a hand out to the bedside table. For resting on the wood, as there had been every morning since he set one atop the story of Bael the Bard, sat a single winter rose. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all for your kudos and comments, and thanks to SaraStarbuck for betaing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You may enter,” Sansa called out, noting that the lord’s knock was a bit harder, louder, more urgent, perhaps, than usual, seeming to echo ominously through her bed chamber. When he entered, his movements were slower than normal, the sound of his steps different, as if one foot dragged a bit against the carpet. It was then that she smelled the coppery scent of blood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the kudos and reviews.   
> And thanks for SaraStarbuck for betaing.

“You may enter,” Sansa called out, noting that the lord’s knock was a bit harder, louder, more urgent, perhaps, than usual, seeming to echo ominously through her bed chamber. When he entered, his movements were slower than normal, the sound of his steps different, as if one foot dragged a bit against the carpet. It was then that she smelled the coppery scent of blood. 

Usually, when he entered, she did not stir from the bed where she had the covers pulled up securely around her. At first, she had insisted on wearing dresses to sleep in, for modesty’s sake, but they were dreadfully uncomfortable. He could not see her and never strayed from his side of the bed, so she had begun wearing the thickest, most demure shifts that she could find in her closet. Still, it was not proper for a young woman to be in such a state of undress before a man who was not her husband. And though she was sharing a bed with this lord, it was not in marriage, and she still clung to the lessons of propriety that she had been taught as a girl. It might be silly, but she fortified the flimsy boundaries that she erected between them, the only way she could justify to herself, for there was no one else to judge her here, the choices she had made since coming to this place. It was the only way that she could live with what she had decided to do, the way she had chosen to dishonor herself. By following the rules that she established, at least she could sooth her conscience by reassuring herself that she had not fallen completely. 

But, when she realized that he was injured, she did not give a second thought to the fact that she wore only her shift. She was at his side in a moment. “You’re hurt,” she said, a statement not a question. 

“It is only a minor wound,” he replied, his voice strained. “I shall be well by morning.” 

“Have you tended to it?”

“I am fine. It will heal.” He took a step toward the bed and hissed in pain. 

“Not unless you care for it.” She led him to the chair before the fireplace, careful to avoid colliding with the room’s furnishings. Despite his protests, she could not help but note that he leaned on her, his hand pressing down on her shoulder as she guided him through the room. 

“Sit,” she commanded, and he let out a groan as he lowered himself to the seat, mumbling apologies that she dismissed. 

“Where is the wound?” she asked, and he took her hand in his, his thick calluses rough against her soft skin as he guided her fingers to his thigh. The fine fabric of his breeches was already wet with blood. 

“I will need to cut the pant leg away,” she said, half to herself, half to him, “and then clean and bind the wound.” 

“There is really no need to fuss, my lady.” 

She ignored him, wiping her bloody fingers on her shift and walked carefully through the room to her night table, where she had left the silver bell. When she returned to his side, she rang it, and called out into the darkness for water, clean linen, and rosehip and peppermint tea, which Old Nan always used to give to Robb, Theon, Bran, and Arya whenever their roughhousing led to scrapes and cuts.

Sansa had never cared for an injured man herself, but she had read enough stories of knights to have some idea about how a wound ought to be treated. It must be cleansed and then wrapped to stop the blood flow. She hoped that it was not so deep so as to require her to sew it shut, for she feared undertaking such a task in the dark. All of her fine embroidery had not prepared her for such a task. 

The tea was on the table, and she put the cup in his hands, bidding him to drink. She felt around in the darkness, and found her sewing scissors in the basket where she had left them. 

“This would be much easier if I had a light,” she said, a complaint, but also a request. If only she could call for Aiduz, to illuminate his leg while she worked. If only she could see the wound, the extent of the damage, instead of groping, fumbling, in the dark. 

“No,” he said, his voice rough, harsher than she could ever remember hearing it. “No light,” he said gentling his tone. “I’m sorry.” 

“Then hold still and I will do my best not to injure you worse than you are,” she replied.

Taking the scissors in hand, she knelt before him, running her fingers up his right leg until she came to the injury. She felt his body tense, heard the air he sucked in between his teeth, as she found the wound. “I’m sorry,” she said, softly. “Now please, be as still as you can.” 

“I will,” he said, and she could almost hear him clench his jaw against the pain.

She cut carefully, taking care not to stab him with a slip of the scissors. Once she had removed the leg of his breeches and the cloth he had, she presumed, wrapped around his leg before coming to her rooms, which was now quite saturated, she soaked some of the linens, gently washing the wound, running water over it to clean as well she could in the dark. He bit back curses while she worked. “I am sorry,” she said, again. “I know it hurts.” 

“You have no need to apologize for your kindness, lady,” he said, his voice tight, teeth gritted.

When she was satisfied that the wound was as clean as she could manage, she lightly patted the area, her touch delicate so as not to further aggravate it. When it was dry, she wrapped linen around his leg. “Please let me know if this feels too tight,” she said. 

“A little tighter, perhaps,” he said, and she obliged. When it was done, she offered him her arm as they made their way to the bed. 

As they approached, she pulled back the covers. “Without a fire,” she explained, “the air is too chill in here to sleep atop the blankets.” 

“I could call for more furs.”

She shook her head, knowing that he would not be able to see it in the darkness. “I trust you, my lord.” 

After he had shrugged off his doublet and painfully settled himself on the bed, she pulled the covers over him. He gently took her hand in his once again, his touch light on hers despite the hard calluses. “Thank you, lady,” he said through the pain. “If there is anything I can do to repay your kindness tonight, please make it known.” 

“I do have a request to make of you, my lord.” 

“What would you have of me, my lady? If it is in my power to grant it, it shall be yours.” 

“Only that you call me ‘Sansa.’ We share a bed every night, which suggests a certain level of intimacy, does it not? I would like to forego unnecessary formalities.” As she spoke the words, she wondered if it was a mistake. Perhaps it would be wiser to keep a chasm of formality wide between them, to keep the barrier as tall and strong as possible. But she could not bear the thought of never hearing her given name again. Better that it be in his mouth than for it to be forever silenced in this place. So, like other walls she had erected between them, she allowed this one too to crumble. 

“Sansa,” he said, “That’s a pretty name. And you must call me ‘Jon.’” She could almost hear the relieved smile in his words, and she was nearly certain that she had chosen well. 

“Very well, Jon.” She smiled at the name. Such a simple common name. Not the name of the magical shape-shifting lord of an enchanted castle. That, she supposed, was yet another way songs had deceived her.

“That is a small request for so great a service. Is there nothing else I might do for you, Sansa?” 

“You have been very kind to me, my lo--Jon,” she said. “But there is perhaps one other thing. If you would allow it.” She paused. “Might I… May I touch your face? I know that light is not permitted, but might I not know you through my fingertips? You sleep beside me, we talk with each other every night, and yet you are a stranger.” 

“Does it bother you so much not to know?”

“I would just like a sketch. An outline to pair with the voice that I hear in the darkness. You have seen my face, at least.” 

“As a wolf, not as a man. It is different, somehow. But you are right. I have an advantage over you in that regard.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, Sansa.” 

“It need not be tonight. If you are in too much discomfort from your injury.” 

“My leg is fine. It will likely be healed by the morning, a cleaner scar, too, for the attention you have paid it. Please. Unless you would rather wait.” 

“Thank you,” she replied, her fingertips brushing across his forehead. He had a scar that slashed from above his left brow to his cheek, and she heard him suck in a breath as she followed its course. Her touch moved down his cheeks to the thick, wiry hair that began growing partly down his cheeks, covered his jaw, encircled his mouth. “I did not expect you to have a beard,” she said. 

“No?” he said, and she could feel his smile beneath her fingertips. “Why not?” 

“I could not say.” Perhaps it was because of the smooth cheeks on so many of the portraits she had spent her days studying. Which was silly, because most men in the north wore whiskers. Her father, and Robb, who, at three and twenty, had been trying to grow his first true beard, and almost succeeding at it, his dark auburn hair still coming in patchy in a few places. “But I like it,” she said, honestly, for it made her think of home. 

“I am glad my grooming does not offend you.” He said, but then she silenced him, her fingers moved to his lips, which relaxed from a smile as she traced them, soft and full and parted slightly. She felt blush rise to her cheeks. Despite sharing a bed with Jon for weeks, this felt the most intimate that she had ever been with a man. Still, her touch lingered, enjoying the warmth of his breath against her palm, her fingertips against his mouth. 

Finally, she ran her fingers through his hair, his curls thick and silky. “Is your hair white?” she asked. 

“Why do you ask that?”

“It is the color of your coat when you are a wolf.” 

He chuckled. “What an odd picture you must have of me. No, my hair is dark. Like my mother. Black. I generally wear it pulled back in a knot. Keep it out of my face. But tonight I did not have the energy.” 

“It is lovely. When I was younger, I always wished for curls. At most my hair gets a bit of a wave to it.” 

“Your hair is beautiful. Even as a wolf I could see that. Kissed by fire.”

“What?” 

“It is something the Freefolk say. Kissed by fire. Red hair is not common among them. They find it very desirable. And yours is. Red hair, I mean, it’s attractive.” 

She smiled, her cheeks growing red, though whether it was from the intimacy of her touch, or from his compliment she did not know. But she did know that they were too close, their bodies, their faces. She had let down her guard, but now it was time to retreat back behind whatever was still left of the wall between them. So she straightened, removing her fingers from his curls. “Thank you for indulging me, Jon.” 

“I owe you a greater debt than what I shall ever be able to repay. And not just for the care you have shown me tonight. My life as a man has been lonely.” She nodded. She had suspected as much, but it was different to hear him say it, to hear him acknowledge the feelings that he shared with her. 

“What about the Freefolk? The friends you mentioned?” 

“I see them only as a wolf. They know me to be a skin changer, but they do not know the man beneath the wolf’s fur. I am only permitted to be a man, to be myself, within these walls.” 

She felt trapped in this castle, free to wander within it, but unable to leave. She wondered if his fate was in some ways worse. Unlike her, he could leave, but his form itself became a kind of prison from which he could not escape. To be unable to be his true self… it seemed that he had not been speaking falsely when he told her that, like she, he was in many ways also a hostage to this place. 

“I would be your friend, Jon,” she said softly. “If you will have me.” 

“I would be honored to be yours, Sansa.” 

She took his hand in hers again, squeezing it gently, his fingers tightening on hers in response. And she felt the barrier between them crumble just a little bit more. “Then friends we shall be.” 

She made her way to the other side of the bed, slipping beneath the covers, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. “Jon?” she said into the darkness. 

“Yes?” he replied sleepily. 

“What happened today?”

“It was a bad day, I am afraid. A very bad day.” 

“Please promise me you will be careful.” 

“I will be, I swear.” 

“You are my only friend,” she said, her voice small. There was Aiduz, of course, but though the little light was a companion, a presence, someone to make her feel just a little less alone, she was not sure that it could truly be a friend the way that Jon might be. “And I have only just now gotten you. I would hate to lose you.” 

“Until today,” he said drowsily. “I have had little to be careful for. I think you have changed that Sansa,” her name was little more than a mumble on his lips, and his breathing deepened and steadied. 

She lay in the darkness, listening to him, exhausted but unable to slip into unconsciousness, her head spinning with the events of the evening. She could not help but think of her fingers on his lips, her hand in his, the warmth of his touch. She had stood before him in nothing more than her shift and had put her hands on his naked thigh. She had called him a friend, and as soon as she had said the word, she had known it to be true. She nestled deeper into the covers, thinking about him beneath the same blanket on the other side of the bed, and she no longer felt quite so protected from him but also not quite so alone. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa rose and washed and tried to eat, but her stomach refused to settle. She was unable to concentrate all day, setting aside her book after reading the same paragraph four times without registering the meaning of the words, and giving up on her embroidery after pricking her finger for the third time. She attempted to simply sit quietly for a while, but she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, before finally standing again. Wandering, pacing around her room, she felt restless, her hands clenching at her skirts, rumbling and creasing the fabric. She tried calling on Aiduz, but the light, perhaps sensing and reflecting her mood, bobbed around, weaving in and out of air above her head, refusing to be still, and putting her even more on edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that you are all safe and well. Thanks for all the comments and kudos. And thanks to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading.

When Sansa woke the next morning, she expected to find remnants of the night before, linens stained with blood, pink-tinted water in the basen, discarded cloth from Jon’s breeches, but the room was clean, and the only evidence of what had passed, of Jon’s injury and her fumbling attempts to heal him, was the dried smear of blood on her shift where she had wiped her hands, the winter roses on the table beside her bed, its scent enveloping her, and a piece of parchment with a hurried note scrawled cross it: 

_ My Dear Sansa,  _

_ Thank you for your kindness and your care last night. _

_ Your friend,  _

_ Jon _

She rose and washed and tried to eat, but her stomach refused to settle. She was unable to concentrate all day, setting aside her book after reading the same paragraph four times without registering the meaning of the words, and giving up on her embroidery after pricking her finger for the third time. She attempted to simply sit quietly for a while, but she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, before finally standing again. Wandering, pacing around her room, she felt restless, her hands clenching at her skirts, rumbling and creasing the fabric. She tried calling on Aiduz, but the light, perhaps sensing and reflecting her mood, bobbed around, weaving in and out of air above her head, refusing to be still, and putting her even more on edge. 

The day dragged with agonizing slowness, and she found herself staring into the flames of the fire willing them to go out. But they continued to burn brightly, their cheery warmth mocking her. 

Eventually, she rang the bell and asked for a glass of wine, hoping that it might help to settle her nerves, to calm her mind. She sipped it slowly, letting its warmth fill her. At Winterfell, her mother allowed her a glass at meals, and she might help herself to two or three during feasts, when wine, like merry spirits, overflowed. But she did not indulge the way that Robb and Theon had, for such a state was not proper for a lady, so now even the small sweet sips she took made her feel a bit light headed. 

She was nearly finished with the glass when the light of the fire and candles extinguished, and she heard the knock at the door. She exhaled a sigh of relief, releasing the breath she had not realized she was holding, and bid him enter. He had barely closed the door and she was before him. Any embarrassment about the impropriety of being so close to him in only her shift was forgotten in her relief and the wine, which seemed to erase many of her inhibitions. Beside, she thought to herself, the night before she had worn only a shift as she tended to him, touched his bare thigh, ran her fingers over his cheeks, his lips, through his hair. What did it matter if that was all she was wearing now?

“Thank the gods,” she said. “I was so worried for you, Jon.” 

He put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “My leg is healing.” He paused for a moment. “I mend faster than a normal man. It is something about this place or my condition, I cannot say which, but all is well.”

She felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I did not know.” 

“I tried to tell you last night, but I am afraid I did a rather poor job of explaining myself. The pain, I think, made me quite incoherent. Thank you, Sansa, for the care you showed me. And your concern for me today. It has been a very long time since anyone fussed or worried over me.”

“I have only just made a friend of you, Jon. I feared losing you so quickly.” Her head suddenly felt very heavy and she felt very much like crying. 

“Do not be afraid,” he said. 

She began to move back toward the bed, but the floor was uneven, and she stumbled. 

He was at her side in an instant, his hand on her arm. “I have you,” he said, and she heard him inhale deeply and then laugh quietly to himself. “Have you been drinking, my lady? I suppose that is one way to pass the lonely hours.” 

“Only a glass of wine,” she admitted. “I thought it might help to settle me. But it seems to have gone right to my head.” 

“Have you eaten?” 

“I am afraid that my nerves did not allow me to eat much today.”

“Are you hungry now?” 

“Famished,” she said. Now that he was home, now that she knew he was safe, she could, needed, to eat. And her stomach unleashed a very unladylike growl, as if to confirm the truth of the claim, and her cheeks grew hot from, she imagined, both wine and embarrassment. 

But Jon just laughed warmly. “Then we shall have to see you fed.” 

She rang the bell, and a tray of fruits and pastries appeared, which he carried to the bed and set in its middle. He requested a glass of wine, and asked her if she would like a second, but she declined, already foolish and giddy enough from the first. She sat beside him, and explored the tray of food with her fingertips. It contained berries and pears and apples, tarts and turnovers and puddings and cakes. She accidently dipped a finger into a custard, laughing and licking the thick, sweet cream off of it. 

They spoke as they ate. She had little to tell him of her day, so she asked about his. He had not ventured far from the castle, limiting his wanderings to his own lands. His day, too, he told her had been rather uneventful, for which she was most grateful. Better he have no stories to share than that he come to her limping and bleeding and telling of adventure.

A few times as Sansa reached for a slice of apple or a grape, her hand brushed his in the darkness, and she felt a flush rise again to her cheeks. When she took a bite of a lemon cake, she broke off a piece and insisted he try it. “Enjoy it. This is the only bite I shall ever share with you,” she warned, as she placed a portion in his palm, “for these are my favorite. Depending on the storms, it could be nearly impossible, sometimes, to get lemons in Winterfell. They had to come all the way from Dorne, and when there were harsh snows and travel became difficult, we might not get a shipment for weeks. But my mother always ensured that I had lemon cakes on my name day, even though it fell during the winter months, early, though some years the snow was already too deep around the castle for most merchants to brave.” But not this year, she thought, this year the snows were late in coming. Perhaps if the weather had been more savage she would still be safe behind Winterfell’s walls.

Her name day, she realized, had passed this year without her so much as acknowledging it. She had lost all sense of time within these walls, could not say if she had been there weeks or months since she had first arrived. Had her family celebrated, even though she was not there? Had they rung the bells in Wintertown and had her mother ordered lemon cakes from the cook and had they remembered the daughter that they had sacrificed to pay debts of old? Or was the thought of her too sad, the ache of missing her too great, to do other than pass the day in the silence of grief?

“You miss her, don’t you?” he asked, breaking her train of thought.

“Yes,” was all she could say, tears already coming to her eyes. Damn the wine she had drunk. It was making her silly and weepy. “I miss all of them.” 

“I never knew my mother,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “She died giving birth to me.”

“I am sorry,” she said, finding his hand in the darkness. In that moment, she did not think that she wore only her shift, did not question if it was appropriate to sit so close to him that they might touch—she would question those things later, when the light of day and a clear head forced her to contemplate her actions—and if he was surprised by her touch, he did not show it, only squeezing her hand gently in response.

“She was beautiful and fierce, and my father loved her dearly, or so I was told. He was wed before he met her, and she was betrothed to another. But they ran off together despite it all.” 

“That sounds like it could be a story, a great romance.” 

“I’m afraid you will not find its conclusion any more pleasant than that of poor Bael. It did not end well. A lot of people died so that they could have their great romance.” He said the word bitterly. “I’m not sure that there is a love in all the world that is worth the cost that others were forced to pay. Only death was born of their union.” 

“That’s not true,” she said, surprised at the forcefulness of her voice. “You were born of it. Surely that must count for something.” 

“Aye. A bastard, who my father only legitimized when his two true born heirs were dead.” She squeezed his hand again as he continued. “They say my father was a changed man after her death. Colder. He wooed my mother with poetry, the stories go, but once she died he never sang any more. Between the fighting he was forced to do and losing the woman he had fought for anyway, they say it all cost him dearly. Though, of course, I never knew him to be otherwise. He could never even bear to look at me. Maester Aemon told me it was because I favored my mother so much, that it broke my father’s heart to see, in my face, the woman he had lost. But I often wonder if he blamed me for her death.” 

What kind of man, Sansa wondered, could treat a child, his own son, in such a manner? But she did not give voice to such thoughts. Instead she simply held his hand a little tighter. 

“But my history is no pleasure to relate,” he said. “Tell me more of your family. It seems as though your memories of your home are happier ones.” 

So she did. She told him about Robb, who would one day take her father’s place as Lord and Bran, who wanted nothing more than to be a knight like those he heard about in the stories that Old Nan told. And Arya, who was by far a better fighter than Bran, and who was as wild as the Northern wind. And Baby Rickon, who was now nearly four and no longer such a baby, and who followed his elder brothers and sisters around, crying to her when they excluded him from their games. And she told him of Theon, her father’s ward and like a brother to Robb and the rest of the Starks. Theon who was a year older but still followed his foster brother’s lead in all things. 

She told him about her father. “To outsiders, those to the south, he can seem as cold as the land he calls home,” she said. “But really he is so warm, with me and my siblings, with my mother, with our people.” Her father, she explained, was the most honorable man she knew, and he had done his best to instill that sense of honor in her and Robb, Bran and Arya, even Theon, who he treated as his own son. 

And she told him of her mother, who had come from the South, arranged to marry Eddard Stark of Winterfell, a frosty Northern Lord and a stranger to her. Her mother had learned to love the North and the man who ruled it, but had made sure that Sansa would grow to be a proper Southern lady. 

“Had I not been brought here,” Sansa said. “I would likely have made a match with some Southern lord. I so desperately wished to see the South, with all its finery and clothing and parties.” Such a different life she had imagined, had dreamed, for herself than the solitary one she had found in these empty halls. 

“I am sorry that such a fate was not yours to have. By rights, it should have been.”

“I may have a Southern mother,” she said seriously. “But I was born of the North. My father raised me to know that my duty was always first to my people. Had I gone South, I may have forgotten that. Here I am sure not to.” 

She knew that her marriage had been an issue of contention between her mother and father. While her mother wished her to set her sights high, to marry a Southern lord with lands and wealth, her father had wanted her to stay in the North, to wed the son of one of his banner men, perhaps Lord Cerwyn’s eldest son Cley. “I will find you a match that is worthy of you,” her father had reassured her one night, “someone brave and gentle and strong.” He did not have to say what was unspoken beneath those words, that he could only make that match if they were allowed to keep her, if she were allowed to stay, if the white wolf did not come for her. How silly that strife between her parents seemed now that it was clear that she would never wed, not a Northern lord nor a Southern one. 

“It is a lonely life for a lady to lead.” 

She smiled, though she knew he could not see it. “Yes, but the company I have found does help to compensate a bit.” She wondered if, at her words, he was smiling too. 

They stayed up late into the night talking with one another. She told him more stories about her childhood and he told her about his Freefolk friends, their boasts and tales and legends, some of which made her laugh, others which made her blush so red that she was glad he could not see her face. They sent away the tray of food after Sansa had devoured no fewer than five lemon cakes, refusing to share another bite with Jon, who, though he protested, assured her that he did not really mind, preferring the strawberry tarts, which he said tasted of a summer he would never know. They lounged on the bed, and Sansa was less concerned with staying huddled on the edge of her side than she had been on any night previous. And when they did eventually fall asleep, her body was close enough to his that she felt his heat warming the blankets that she pulled around her. 

She slept late into the morning and stayed in bed until the afternoon, occasionally sniffing the beautiful winter rose that he had left on her night table, when she eventually forced herself to leave the bed to bathe and dress in something other than her shift. She spent the next few hours reading the book that she had been unable to focus on the day before, feeling dreamy and content as she awaited his arrival. And when he came, they once again stayed up for hours, their voices drifting to one another in the dark. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it came to be that they stayed awake later and later each night, and Sansa’s lonely daytime hours dwindled as she lingered in bed until the morning hours had nearly passed. She expressed concern that he was not getting enough sleep, for he always rose earlier than she, but he reassured her, telling her that he had plenty of rest, that talking with her was restorative in ways that sleep was not. She blushed at his words, and found herself wondering, not for the first time, just how deep the sentiment behind them went.

And so it came to be that they stayed awake later and later each night, and Sansa’s lonely daytime hours dwindled as she lingered in bed until the morning hours had nearly passed. She expressed concern that he was not getting enough sleep, for he always rose earlier than she, but he reassured her, telling her that he had plenty of rest, that talking with her was restorative in ways that sleep was not. She blushed at his words, and found herself wondering, not for the first time, just how deep the sentiment behind them went.

As she slept later and later into the morning, her hours alone shortened, and she found that the time she had for reading and embroidery was more precious, because the days no longer stretched out before her so vast and lonely. Still, she eagerly looked forward to the darkness, when she knew he would come to join her. And slowly it began to dawn on Sansa, for the first time in the nearly three months she had been at the castle, that she could, perhaps, find a way to be content here, to make some sort of life for herself, which, if not the life that she, her father, or her mother had imagined for her, might make her happy. 

“I wish that you could meet my father and brothers,” she told him one night, a thought she’d had many times, but had never voiced aloud. “I think they’d rather like you.” In recent days, she had found herself wondering what it might have been like had Jon come to Winterfell, not as a wolf out of legends, but like any other Northern Lord. What it would have been like to dance with him at a ball, to sit beside him at her father’s high table, to walk with him through the godswood of the castle, to have met him without curses or enchantments or blood debts of old. 

He laughed, a sound that had not become less treasured by her despite hearing it more often. “I doubt they’d be too fond of the man who took their daughter and sister away to the wild lands of the North.” 

She smiled. “I suppose there is some truth to that. Though I was always going to be taken away by some lord, and you treat me with more consideration than most men do their wives.” She found herself blushing at the thought of Jon as her husband, of the things that they might do in this bed, would be expected to do, were they wed, and she tried not to dwell on the fact that the idea of being with him, like that, no longer filled her with the horror that it had her first few nights in the palace. “My father wanted me to be happy,” she continued, trying to dispel thoughts of the marriage bed, “and I think I have grown to feel happy here.” 

“I am glad to hear that, Sansa.” 

“I still miss home, of course. But in leading me here, fate has been kinder than expected. You have been kinder than I expected. Thank you for that.”

“What a low opinion you must have had of me,” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice, which turned serious, earnest, as he continued. “As I said the first day you arrived in this castle, all that I have is yours. You are more the mistress of this place than I have ever been its master.” He paused, and then continued, a slight edge of bitterness in his tone. “I just wish that I had more to give you than empty rooms.” 

At his generosity, a familiar coil of guilt slithered from her stomach to tighten around her heart. “There is something I need to confess to you, Jon.” She took a deep breath. “During my first few weeks here, I sneaked into your room.”

“I know.”

“You do?” 

“Of course, Sansa. That room has been empty of anyone but me for years and years, do you really think I couldn’t sense, couldn’t smell the disruption? And since there are only the two of us in this place, it was not a difficult mystery to solve.”

“But you never said anything.” 

“I didn’t see the need to. You hadn’t broken any rules, hadn’t gone against my request. Quite the contrary. I told you the entire castle was yours. I did not specify that the invitation did not include my room.” 

“Still,” she said, shame burning her face. “There are rules of conduct that should not need to be directly stated. They are to be understood as common courtesy.”

He laughed. “Sansa, sweet girl, I think I threw out many of the rules of common courtesy when I, on the first night we met, asked to share your bed.” And she felt her cheeks flush hotter and her heart beat a little faster, though no longer from shame. 

“Still, say you forgive me, Jon.” 

“Truly, there is nothing to forgive.” 

“Say it anyway.”

“Aright,” he complied. “I forgive you.” And she was certain that she heard a smile in his voice.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile of her own. “I still feel terrible about it, though.” 

“Why, if you feel so badly, did you do it in the first place?” Had Arya asked her such a question like that it would have been hard, sarcastic, a challenge. But Jon’s tone was gentle, curious, rather than accusatory.

She sighed, feeling rather foolish, but determined to tell him the truth. “Everything was so confusing in those first few weeks, and you were no less a mystery than the shifting halls of this castle or the invisible servants who were seeing to my every whim. I knew that I would not comprehend the magic of those latter things, but you are a man, cursed though you may be, and I thought that I might come to understand you, at least, a little better.”

“And did my rooms help in that regard?”

“Not a bit.” 

“If you had wanted to learn about me, you know that there was a far easier way to go about it.”

“And what was that?” she said.

“You need only to have asked, sweet girl. I would, I will, tell you all that I can.” 

“Well, I know that now,” she said. “But you must remember that when I first met you, you were little more than a voice in the darkness. I did not know you then, Jon, not as I do now.” 

“I’m sorry that I intimidated you so entirely.” 

“I don’t believe it could have been otherwise given the rather unusual circumstances of our introduction.” She found her cheeks reddening again, thinking of the disservice she had done him, the assumptions she had made, during that first meeting. There were so many things that remained a mystery to her, but of one thing she was absolutely certain: that she could trust him and that when she was with him, she was safe. “But still, I should not have done it. Even Aiduz disapproved,” she muttered. 

“Aiduz?” he asked. 

“The little light. He’s my guide through the confounded halls of this place and my only companion during the day. It’s silly I suppose, but I thought it right to give him a name.” 

“And a noble one at that. That is the Old Tongue, is it not?”

“You know it? I thought the daughters of stubborn northern lords were the only ones who still spoke it.”

“I’ve also been forced to learn it, for the language is not as dead as you in the south believe.” He nudged her gently with his shoulder, and she smiled, for her bristling indignation at being called a southerner had become something of a jest between them. It gave her comfort, pleasure, to share such things, small as they might be, with him. “There are those among the Freefolk who still speak in the words of the First Men.” 

“I imagine that it must sound rather fearsome being growled out by a wolf.” The Old tongue was a rough, clanging speech, and she had not liked the way it felt in her mouth, preferring the more melodious sounds of Valyrian. 

He laughed. She was still surprised by how often he did so.Those first few weeks, he had been so formal and stiff and cool with her that she could scarcely imagine him jesting or laughing or even smiling. But as she grew to know him, his frosty exterior had melted, and she relished his dry wit, his deep and easy chuckle. “I should think so, though for most an enormous talking wolf is fearsome enough, no matter what language he speaks. You were very brave to come with me that day.” He paused. “And you were very kind to give that poor creature a name. He’s been trapped here far longer than you or I, and if he had a name when he was free, I cannot say if even he remembers it. ‘Fire’ suits him.”

“What is he?” she asked softly.

“Some call his kind a will-o’-wisp. He was captured and bound to this place by one of my magic-mad ancestors. I remember playing with him as a boy, but since then, I’m afraid that his life has been just as lonely as yours and mine had been here.”

“You grew up in this castle?” 

“Aye. Maester Aemon brought me here when I was a boy. Though it was different then. Spring still came to this land to melt the snows.” 

“It has been over five hundred years since summer was seen beyond the wall.” She paused. “How long ago were you a boy, Jon?” she asked softly. 

He sighed. “I have seen over six hundred years.” And in that moment, he seemed so old, so tired, worn down by centuries. “A part of the curse. Had I been allowed to die like a normal man, this all would be so much easier to bear.” 

“Six hundred years,” she murmured, in what once might have been disbelief, but she had seen too much of this enchanted place for incredulity. “Six hundred years, and you have been waiting all that time to break this curse?” 

“It has been a very long time.” 

“I can’t imagine,” she said softly, for she knew how long her time in this castle had felt, a blink of an eye compared to the years and years and years that he had been trapped here, had spent his days imprisoned in the body of a beast. “What was it like here?” she asked. “When you were a child?” 

She felt him relax on the bed beside her. “I was happy here. Probably the happiest I’d ever been. There has always been a bit of magic about the place, but in those days, it was full of life. Gardens and servants, horses and dogs. There were actually people about instead of only empty halls full of nothing but echoes, shadows, and memories. Maester Aemon always took good care of me. Made me study all manner of things, though I had more of a mind to run about on adventures.” Sansa smiled, thinking of the way that Maester Luwin chased Robb, Theon, and Arya through the halls of Winterfell, trying to get them to return to their books. “But he was always kind. That’s probably why he took me here. Wanted to get me away from the indifference of my father and the cruelty of my uncle. So he brought me to the furthest reaches of their empire.”

_ Their empire.  _ The word struck Sansa, sent a shiver through her as she thought back to the history Maester Luwin had taught her and the legends that Old Nan had told the of the great empire that had stretched from Essos to Westeros, forged in dragons’ fire and tempered in blood, she had said. Old Nan had told Sansa and her siblings of the empire that had subjugated the North, her people, her ancestors, had threatened them. She told them of the choice that was no choice, fealty or flames, that if the North had not bent the knee, it would burn. And to save his people, the King in the North had removed his crown and knelt before the conqueror, promising allegiance, and sacrificing the independence of the North to save its life. For generations, her people had chaffed under the yoke of their foreign sovereign, had whispered that one day they would be free. 

Then one day, a Dragon Prince had seen a daughter of Winterfell, and had decided that she must be his. Her father objected, because the prince was married, and the girl was already promised to another and his honor would not allow him to break that oath. But the prince, as is often the way with princes, would not take no for an answer and stole the girl from her Northern home. There was a war, a rebellion that failed. 

But the North remembered well its days of freedom and independence, and would no longer be chained to a dragon’s throne. It bided its time until it was ready to strike again, to throw off its shackles for once and for all. For the girl’s younger brother had gone into the untamed lands that would have been his kingdom, and he had learned the wild magics of mountains and wood, of wind and frost, and when he emerged, twenty years later, he had the power to topple stone dragons and raze an empire. 

Sansa had never cared much for the story. It was too violent, ended too sadly, twisted the idea of love into something she scarcely recognized. Still there had been countless songs about the prince’s mad obsession, the bloodshed that followed. Those verses had sung of the Northern princess’s death, the dragon’s rage, his grief, but she could not remember mention of a babe, a boy sired by a dragon and birthed by a lady of the north. Still, she knew without a doubt that it was true, that Jon was that child. 

“You’re a Targaryen,” she said, her voice hushed. 

“Yes.”

“But the empire fell and the last of the Targaryens died with them.”

“As I should have long ago.”

“But your people took mine’s freedom away from them,” she said quietly, for that was what she, what every child of the North, had been taught in their stories. The Targaryens were only a thing of songs, a dark and twisted family used by bards to frighten and delight their audiences, for whenever a Targaryen was mentioned, a shudder would ripple through the audience. 

“My father’s people. My mother’s people are the same as yours.” 

“Your mother’s freedom was also taken from her.” Kidnapped and raped, the legends said. A daughter of Winterfell seized by a Targaryen prince, as she had been. No, she had not been taken, but given, as six before her had. Had this been the revenge that Jon’s uncle had taken on his nephew, the youngest of the Targaryen princes? Had he pitied the boy who had the North in his veins, who shared his blood though he bore the dragon’s name, cursing him, instead of killing him, forcing him to relive his mother’s story, to take a Stark girl and force her into his bed the way his father had. Or perhaps, she thought, it was not kindness, but rage at the child, the living evidence, of the violence his sister had endured, the cause of her death.

“My father said that she loved him. That she went with him willingly. Maester Aemon, too,” he said quietly, and Sansa heard in his words how desperately he wanted them to be true. 

“Perhaps she did,” Sansa replied, and she took his hand in hers. “Those who know the truth are beyond asking.” She paused. “But, Jon, no matter what the truth of it is, it doesn’t change who you are. Who you have decided to be.” She squeezed his hand. “You are not your father.” Who, even if the legends were not true, had not been a kind man, at least not to his son.

“Thank you, Sansa.” And he brought his hand to her cheek, brushed it lightly before cupping her head. He leaned in, pressing his lips against her forehead, lingering for a moment, the warmth of his kiss flooding through her. He pulled away, his hand still on his head, and she could feel him in the darkness, sense him pause, hesitate. She wondered if he would kiss her again, her lips this time, and she felt her body heat in response, her mouth part slightly, an invitation that he could not read in the darkness of the room. An invitation that despite the certainty of her body, she was not sure it was wise to extend. But wise or not, it didn’t matter because he shifted away, leaving her cold. 

“We should get some sleep,” he said stiffly. “It grows late.” 

“Yes. Of course,” she replied, as she lay next to him in the dark. “Jon,” she said after a moment. “I hope that you have some pleasant memories. Of your childhood, I mean.”

“I do. I had an aunt. We were nearly of an age, almost inseparable. She cared for me, comforted me when things got bad with my father or uncle. She was the one person I missed when Maester Aemon brought me here. But she was lost when the rest of them died.” He said, his voice tight with grief.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, taking his hand in hers once more. They did not say anything else to each other, but Sansa fell asleep with his fingers interwoven with hers and the memory of his lips on her forehead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos, and thanks, of course, to SaraStarbuck for beta reading. 
> 
> Just a quick notes about updates. My partner has tested positive for covid-19, and I am not feeling well myself (was tested today, but have not yet gotten the results). We are both doing okay, and while we are feeling a bit run-down, we are very fortunate that our symptoms are not worse than they are. I am hoping that this will not interfere with my weekly up-dates, but in case it does, apologies in advance.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa stirred in the bed, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, warm and drowsy and secure. She snuggled deeper into the covers, then tensed, suddenly aware that it was not her heavy quilt but Jon’s arms around her, beneath her, his leg thrown over hers, only the clothes they had worn to bed separating his body from hers. He must have sensed her movement, for he made a soft, contented sound, and pulled her closer, burying his nose in her hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your very kind comments. My partner and I are both doing well and have had very mild symptoms. We have been very fortunate, and I thank you all for your very kind words and thoughts. 
> 
> I did something a bit different in this chapter, so I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Thanks always to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading.

Sansa stirred in the bed, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, warm and drowsy and secure. She snuggled deeper into the covers, then tensed, suddenly aware that it was not her heavy quilt but Jon’s arms around her, beneath her, his leg thrown over hers, only the clothes they had worn to bed separating his body from hers. He must have sensed her movement, for he made a soft, contented sound, and pulled her closer, burying his nose in her hair. 

She knew that she ought to wake him so that he could untangle himself from her, but she liked the feel of his arms around her, the warmth of his body, his steady, even breath against her neck. She knew that it was not proper for a lady to be like this with a man to whom she was not wed, but she had long ago abandoned any semblance of the propriety her mother had instilled in her. She had been four months—though it sometimes felt like four weeks and others like four years—in this enchanted castle, four months removed from Winterfell, her family, and the life that she had known. She thought of her mother and father, brothers and sister daily, but the world she had known there, the expectation of how a young lady was supposed to behave, how she should conduct herself in mixed company, all seemed so distant, separated not just by months and miles, but an entire lifetime. Here, in this place so different from the one she had known, such things did not seem to matter. They were not a Lord and Lady; they were just Jon and Sansa alone in this bed and in this world.

So instead of attempting to disentangle herself from his embrace or wake him to remove himself to his side of the bed, she pressed herself closer against him, and his arms tightened around her, an unconscious reassurance. She breathed in his smell, felt the rhythm of his heart beat, of the gentle rise and fall of his chest against her back, and closed her eyes. As sleep took her, she wondered idly if they would be in a similar position when the dawn came and he awoke, and if he, too, would feel reluctant to leave. 

When she awoke, she had what she thought was an answer, for under the winter rose that she found every morning on her bedside table there was a short note, penned in a hurried hand. 

_ Dear Sansa,  _

_ Until this evening when I see you again, know that I remain  _

_ Affectionately Yours,  _

_ Jon  _

He had left her a number of notes since the first, and she had taken to keeping them in the drawer of her nightstand. They were often no more than a single line and did not say much. Jon, it seemed, was not one for poetry. But still, their presence beside her bed when she awoke, she thought, she hoped, communicated more than the words written in his messy hand. They were the only words she could have from him during the daytime hours, the only piece of him that she could bring into the light, and even that small bit was enough for her to press the note to her heart, and fall back onto the pillows smiling to herself. 

During the day, she followed Aiduz to the library. Even this room, which she frequented so often, was impossible for her to find on her own. The castle remained a twisting and shifting enigma that she could not navigate, and she had asked Jon to tell her what he could of it. He had assured her that the rooms had not always moved as they did now, the changing nature of the floor plan seemingly the result of the curse or enchantment that he and the place had been subject to. 

But Aiduz, it seemed, had mastered the labyrinth of the castle’s halls, though she could not figure out how. Perhaps he was, in some way, bound to the magic of the place, which provided him insights that an ordinary mortal, like her, could never hope to comprehend. Usually, though, he seemed glad enough to serve as her guide, and today he was bursting with energy, buzzing around the hallway, springing far ahead of her before drifting back to spin above her head, as though encouraging her to go faster. “Slow down,” she chided gently. “I am afraid that those of us who rely on legs can’t move quite so quickly.” He blinked at her, and slacked his pace, though he insisted on doing loops around her as though to urge her forward. “What has you so excited?” she asked, not for the first time wishing that the light could communicate with her more fully. 

Once she arrived, though, she could not settle on anything to read, because her thoughts returned to Jon again and again. The respect he had always shown her, which extended beyond mere courtesy to something deeper in his nature, some kindness in him. The way that he made her laugh, and the sadness in his voice when he spoke of his mother and his childhood. The way his hand had felt in hers, the warmth of his arms around her. 

She wondered how they had come to be like that together in the bed, how they had ended up curled together, twisted around each other. Had this desire, this yearning, in her body, this thing that she had not allowed herself to give voice to, had it, somehow, called out to him in the night, drawing him closer to her? And had there been something in him that had heard her body’s call and responded? 

She wondered if he thought of her as well. 

She was so lost in thought that she did not notice that Aiduz seemed to be hovering around one of the book shelves, until he, in what she could only assume was a fit of pique and annoyance, flashed his light at her so brightly so as to be nearly blinding. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I know I have been distracted. It’s just that I feel….” she trailed off. “Well, that’s rather the problem, isn’t it? I don’t know how I feel.” The light came down from the shelf for just a second before coming close enough to lightly warm her skin, before swooping around her and back up to resume his position near a leatherbound book, its leather dark and warn, thin cracks spider webbing across the binding. “Do you have a recommendation?” she asked, and the light moved aside so that she could reach the volume, the cover dry and hard, Aiduz winking excitedly, as though pleased that she had accepted his suggestion.

She followed Aiduz back to her room and carefully opened the book. The poem seemed to come from Essos, as best she could tell, for it was a legend she had never heard before, not from Old Nan, whose repertoire tended to focus on tales of the north, of her home and her people, nor from Maester Luwin, who focused their studies on histories, not myths, though even he admitted that there were times when it could be difficult to discern the difference. 

It was the story of a beautiful maiden, Kios, who was so lovely, the legend said, that flowers bloomed at her feet, and turned their faces not toward the sun, but her radiance. Her mother, white-armed Jaedos, was a great and powerful lady, ruler of fertile lands and soft meadows, mother to six sons and a single daughter, who she loved above all else. Though a number of noble lords wished for spring-kissed Kios’s hand, Jaedos refused to give her to any of them, choosing instead to hide her daughter away. 

But one whose beauty burned as brightly as lovely Kios could not stay hidden for long, and one day, while she was playing in a field with her ladies in waiting, picking flowers, irises and crocuses, violets and hyacinth, war-like Morghon, lord of the neighboring land, a hard place of craggy mountains and cold winds, rode past on his terrible black steed. And his face, too, was turned toward fair-haired Kios, and he was overcome by her beauty, and, the legend said, his heart, once as frigid and hard as the peaks of his mountain home, thawed. 

He knew that he must have her, so he went to his brother, dragon-born Darys, emperor of all, and asked him to grant him the girl in marriage, for in those times kings had the power to do such things. And golden Darys granted his brother’s request, though whether out of love for his brother or fear of Morghon, death-bringer, none could say. For fierce Morghon had led armies and charged onto battlefields to win his brother his many-jeweled crown, and in return he was given a domain rich in metals and gems to be torn from the earth, his brother hoping he would be satisfied with such riches. But some whispered that wide-ruling Darys feared that if his brother, the dreaded one, grew dissatisfied, he would turn his gray eyes and mighty sword upon his brother and take his splendid throne for himself. 

So it was that mighty Morghon took lovely Kios as his bride, over broken-hearted Jaedis’s objections. And he brought her to his snow-capped home, and gold and jewels hung around her neck and dripped from her dainty fingers. But all the glittering riches that could be hewn from the mountain could not replace the flowers of the field that Kios had lost. She stayed with Morghon for six months, and during that time a strange thing began to happen, her heart was struck by Jorrāelagon’s, that wiley-archer, arrow and when grain-rich Jaedis’s threats of starvation caused golden Darys to relent, Kios determined that she abandon neither her mother nor her grey-eyed lover, but would spend six months with each. 

And so it is said that when lovely Kios returns to her mother’s lands, the flowers bloom and turn their faces toward her, and when she leaves to sit beside mighty Morghon and share his bed, the flowers, grieving her loss, return to the earth. 

Sansa closed the book and looked, quizzically, at Aiduz. She had no doubt why the light had wanted her to read this tale, for the legend bore a startling similarity to her own story. Had she not, like Kios, been taken from her family, from her home, in order to share the bed of a stranger. And yet, Jon has given her choices that had been denied the maiden in the story. She may not have been given a choice in coming to this strange place, but since she had been here, Jon had forced nothing on her. She wondered if Morghon had been so courteous to Kios, or if he had insisted that his rights as her husband be observed. Though, perhaps he hadn’t. For how could a woman fall in love with a man who would treat her in such a way, who would force himself upon her, would take her maidenhead along with her dreams of fields and flowers and freedom? She shuddered, a sudden chill in her veins, as she thought, not for the first time, at how lucky she had been in her captor. For Jon might be cursed to wear the skin of a beast, but he remained a good man.

She wished she knew why Jon had taken her, why after generations, she had been the one the white wolf had come for. Morghon had taken Kios, brought her to his home, because he loved her, desired her, wished her to be his wife. Jon’s motives were not so transparent, but she was certain that it had not been for love. When he had spoken of taking her, his words, his tone, suggested duty, obligation, necessity, not an uncontrollable passion. As he had come to know her, he seemed to develop a certain affection for her, but she thought that perhaps it was only the friendly sort, that he had no interest in wedding her, in ravishing her, in loving her. If only she could be so sure about her feelings toward him. But she was beginning to suspect that, like Kios, perhaps her heart, too, had been pierced, that she was growing fond, too fond, of the man who had taken her from her home, and that if given the choice to leave, a part of her would remain his captive and would stay with him forever, lost within the twisting halls of this place, and she was beginning to hope that he might want her to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The legend that Sansa reads is based on Hades and Persephone--one of my favorite myths (though not the one whose plot is closest to this story, despite the parallels that Sansa draws). The names of the characters in the story are all adopted from Valyrian: Kios (spring), Jaedos (summer), Morghon (death), Darys (king), Jorrāelagon (love). I also had a bit of fun playing around with Homeric epithets in order to, somewhat, capture the style and feel of Greek epic. Hope it worked!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That evening, when he came to her room, neither of them spoke about the position in which they slept. Sansa was too embarrassed to breach the subject, especially because she could not be absolutely certain that he even knew about it, and if he didn’t, it would be mortifying to try to explain. So she both hoped and dreaded that Jon would speak of it. But he did not, and Sansa wondered whether his reluctance originated from the same uncertainty as hers, or whether there were other reasons why he did not speak. For she was now a bit more sure about what was in her heart and feared to learn that his might not reflect her own. 

That evening, when he came to her room, neither of them spoke about the position in which they slept. Sansa was too embarrassed to breach the subject, especially because she could not be absolutely certain that he even knew about it, and if he didn’t, it would be mortifying to try to explain. So she both hoped and dreaded that Jon would speak of it. But he did not, and Sansa wondered whether his reluctance originated from the same uncertainty as hers, or whether there were other reasons why he did not speak. For she was now a bit more sure about what was in her heart and feared to learn that his might not reflect her own. 

Instead of acknowledging the way that their bodies had twined together in the night, he asked her about how she spent her day, and she told him about going to the library with Aiduz, mentioning, in what she hoped was a light, breezy tone, that she had found an epic poem of Old Valyria, a love story. She did not, though, mention how adamant the light that had been that she read the tale nor the reason she suspected for his recommendation. 

“And did you enjoy it?” he asked. 

“I did,” she said. “It was a story of an unlikely love. And,” she added, “it ended quite happily.” 

“That was quite a find, then,” he said. “Most of their poetry is about war and bloodshed, about men fighting and dying over lands or women or glory or some other nonsense. And most of it does not end well. Maester Aemon insisted I read many of their tales as a boy, a way to learn of my father’s people. I suppose I found it terribly exciting, though such stories do not seem to suit your taste.”

“Indeed, they don’t. In fact, that sounds absolutely dreadful,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “So I supposed it truly was an improbable love story.” 

“The most beautiful often are. To find affection, to find love when one does not expect to is truly a precious and wonderful thing,” he replied, and there was something about his voice in the darkness, something about how he said ‘love,’ curling around it as though it were dear and fragile, a delicate bloom that he feared one touch would destroy, that gave Sansa hope.

After they had talked for hours, as they did most nights, it was finally time to go to sleep. He laid down on top of the blankets, as he always did, and it was then that Sansa spoke “The room grows so cold at night,” she observed, though, in truth, it was nothing but a pretense. “You need not sleep atop the blankets.” They had this argument every night since he had been injured, and every night, she was the victor. He always, chivalrously, made to sleep, as he had during the first months of their arrangement, above the blankets under which she had huddled. Sansa always insisted that he was being silly. And truly he was, for they had spent so many nights together, sharing the bed, the blankets, and each other’s warmth, that to insist that they do otherwise at this point would be rather foolish, as she had pointed out more than once. Still, she appreciated his decorum, his refusal to presume that he was welcome, the opportunity he gave her each night to change her mind, though she hadn’t yet.

“It is no trouble, Sansa. If you would be more comfortable.”

“My comfort is not really at stake, is it? For I shall be cozy regardless. Do you not think that you might sleep better beneath the blankets than atop them?”

“Aye. I can’t argue otherwise.”

“Then don’t be such a stubborn fool.” She smiled affectionately, though she knew he could not see it. 

“As my lady commands,” he said, and she thought he might be smiling as well. And she sat silently as she heard him remove the doublet he wore, dropping it to the floor beside the bed, before sliding under the covers. 

The next time Sansa woke during the night, his body was again curled around her. Her head rested on his forearm, and she wove her fingers through those of his other hand, bringing it up to her lips. As she did so, his arm brushed against her breasts, and she felt a heat flow through her at the light and incidental touch, and she wondered what it might feel like for him to cup them in his hands, the thought of it making her hotter still. 

“Sansa,” he murmured her name into her hair, his voice thick with sleep. 

“Shhh,” she shushed him. “Go back to sleep, Jon.” 

He shifted, pulling her flush against him, his arm resting between her breasts, and she felt his hardness against her backside, only the thin fabric of her shift and his breeches separating them. 

She had brothers and knew the ways that a man’s body was different from her own. But she had never felt a man’s desire. And she was not at all sure what to make of it or her body’s response to feeling his erection against her, the way that it made the heat coursing through her flood her core, her breasts aching to be touched all the more.

She woke the next morning with a tightness in her body and paced her room irritably before deciding what to do with her day. She rang the bell, summoning Aiduz. “Can you please take me to the hot spring?” she asked. The warm waters would relax her, she thought, and help to release the tension coiled through her, she reassured herself as she followed the light through the twisting corridors to the room with the pool that she had discovered during her wanderings through the castle on the first day of her confinement there. 

The room was as she remembered, its walls natural stone, lit by torches that gave off a warm, flickering light. It hot in the room, the air was thick and heavy. “I think I need a little privacy today,” she said to Aiduz, feeling oddly shy about disrobing before him. The light dimmed, as though disappointed. “I’m sorry,” Sansa said, and he pulsed his glow, in forgiveness or understanding, she hoped, and then vanished. Only once he was gone did she untie the sash of her dressing gown, allowing it to slide from her shoulders and pool around her on the rough stone floor, and she stepped out of the folds of fabric and into the steamy warmth of the waters. She sighed, some of the tension leaving her body as she leaned back against the edge of the pool, breathing in the humid air and willing her body to relax, remembering the hot springs of Winterfell, and the days she had spent there with Arya and her mother. 

However, such thoughts quickly left her, as idly reaching to pull her loose hair over her shoulder, her arm brushed against her nipple. It hardened, despite the warmth of the pool, and a shudder of pleasure washed over her, as she remembered the feel of Jon’s arm brushing against her breasts the night before and the thought of his hands on her.

Experimentally, tentatively, she ran a finger around and then over her nipple. Her body responded, and she moaned at the effect. She took her breast in her hand, squeezing it gently, then harder, pleasure coursing through her. Her other hand grabbed for the other breast, rubbing the dark pink circle of her areola, pinching her erect nipples, and she let out a cry, closing her eyes and imagining not her hands, but hands that she had never seen, hands that were so gentle, despite their rough calluses, hands that had brushed against her, had held hers in the darkness of the room. Then she was thinking not just of his hands, but his mouth and his tongue and the lips she had run her fingers over. She moaned, and the wanton sensuality of the sound only served to arouse her more, for it was certainly not the sound that any proper young woman ought to make. 

Yearning and heat traveled from her breasts to pool between her legs. One hand drifted her stomach as the other continued to tease her nipple. She hesitated for a moment before running a finger along the lips of her cunt, surprised by the silky slickness of her core. Her eyes closed, as she slid her finger in and then out of herself. She thought of Jon, his hands, the hardness of his manhood as they had slept clinging to one another in their massive bed. Her fingers gripped her breasts with more force, pinched with more pressure, as a second finger joined the first inside of her. She wondered what it would be like for him to enter her, to slide in and out of her as her fingers were now doing, what it would be like to have his lips on hers, his breath against her neck, the pounding of his heart against her chest as he moved inside of her. She was panting and moaning, and she thought she would go mad from the wanting of him, before she crested, pleasure rolling through her, toes curling and legs shaking, her back arching, her breathing heavy. 

Sansa’s mother had explained a woman’s duty to her, had told her what would be expected of her once she was wed. She knew what was needed to produce heirs. And her mother had told her that it could be pleasant, though many women were not so lucky as to marry a man who was considerate enough to take a woman’s pleasure into account during their couplings. She had once overheard Theon bragging, attempting to impress Robb with stories about his visits to the brothels of Winter Town and how he had made the prostitutes there cry his name. At the time, she had been equally intrigued and disgusted by some of the acts he had described in sordid detail until Robb had told him to stop telling tales. And of course there had been the stories and songs, which did not provide much by way of detail, but did include a lot of love making. 

So Sansa was not completely ignorant of what occured between a man and a woman. But she had not known the pleasure that she could tease from herself. She spent some time in exploration of her body. Her fingers trailing from her breasts to her navel to her cunt. She discovered the ways in which she could best satiate herself, the way that the lightest of touches could send a shudder of pleasure through her, spiraling down into the depths of greater wanting. She felt the heat course through her as she ran her fingers through the red curls between her legs to the nub between them. The way that her breasts felt tight and heavy in her hands, aching for her touch. But not just for her touch, because she could not seem to keep her thoughts from Jon, from what it would feel like to be touched by him in such a way, for him to take her and for her to take him. 

She lounged in the pool for what felt like hours, teasing and stroking and tempting herself. And when she rose from the water and dried off, once again putting on her dressing gown, she left that place knowing, with clarity and certainty that she felt throughout her body, what she wanted. She followed Aiduz back to her bedroom, trailing him in silence through the maze-like corridors of her new home, feeling quite too embarrassed to say much of anything to the light. 

When she returned to her room, she rang the bell and, despite the fact her fingers and toes were still wrinkled from her time in the hot spring, she requested a bath. The water smelled of lavender, lemon, and honey, and she soaked in its perfume, carefully washing her hair. 

She once again dried herself and sat before the mirror of her dressing table. Sansa had always been lovely. She had grown up with lords remarking that she was such a sweet, pretty little thing. As she had grown older, those compliments had changed to observations that she was a strikingly beautiful woman. She had her mother’s looks: her high cheekbones, her Tully hair--kissed by fire Jon had called it--the color of autumn, with strands of copper, bronze, and gold, her eyes, clear and blue as a cloudless winter morning. But looking into the glace now, Sansa saw herself as she never had. Her cheeks were flushed, colored by a slight blush, her eyes were bright, radiant, her lips fuller, their color deeper. She scarcely recognized the sensual face that looked back at her. 

Sitting before the mirror, she brushed her hair and tied it back in a loose braid, hoping that it would dry with a slight wave. She then went to the armoire to dress. She selected a shift and dressed, returning to the mirror. The garment was lower cut than the ones she usually selected, the curve of the tops of her breasts exposed. The material was thinner, and she could see the peaks of her nipples through it, feeling herself growing aroused at the sight of her breasts, at the thought of what she had decided to do. She knew it was silly to worry so much about her appearance; he would not see her in the darkness that cloaked the room at his arrival, but still she inspected herself once more in the glass before settling on the bed to wait for Jon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that you all enjoyed this chapter and the fact that we are starting to make good on some of those tags. :) Thanks for all the kudos and comments. And, as always, thanks to SaraStarbuck for beta reading.


	11. Chapter 11

The wait was excruciating, but eventually, finally, the lights and fire went out, and he came. She bid him enter in response to his knock on her door, and she wondered if he sensed anything different in her voice, if he detected any of the changes in her that the day had brought. If he did, he did not comment on it, but walked to her through the room and, as he had every night for the past four months, asked if he might join her. 

“You may,” she told him.

“And how was your day, Sansa? I trust you found some way to amuse yourself?” he asked, and she felt the mattress shift beneath his weight, her body growing warm at his proximity, the memory of what she had imagined his hands and lips and mouth doing flooding through her now that he was so close. 

She could feel the heat rise to her cheeks in what she was certain was a furious blush. “I always do,” she said, hoping that her voice sounded light and nonchalant, that it would not betray either the truth or the shame of how she had spent her afternoon. “Today I found the room with the hot spring pool. It reminded me of Winterfell. There are similar ones in the Godswood there.”

“It must be good to be reminded of home.” 

“I need not be reminded of the castle I was born in,” she found his hand with hers. “But I believe that I have come to see this place, with you, as a home as well, Jon.” 

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice sounded hoarse. “It gladdens me to hear that.” 

“How was your day?”

“It was good enough. The days seem better now. Now that I have something other than loneliness to return to.” 

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment while Sansa calmed her racing heart enough to speak. She took a deep breath. “Jon?” she said, surprised at how small her voice sounded in the darkness. 

“Yes?” 

“Do you remember the first night you spent with me, when you swore an oath never to touch me?” 

He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice sounded pained. “You’re right. I have not honored my word. I think it would be best if I resumed sleeping atop the blankets again so that similar breaches do not occur again. I must apologize to you Sansa, and assure you that although it was an accident, that does not make it any less--” 

“Jon,” Sansa said, interrupting his torrent of words. “This is not about how we have been sleeping. Well, perhaps it is, but what I meant to say, Jon,” she steeled herself. “Is that I wish to change the terms of our agreement.” 

“Sansa,” his voice was heavy, husky, raw. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean,” she said in what she hoped was a seductive tone, inching toward him on the bed, and praying to the gods that he would not reject her, for she was not sure she could survive such shame, “is that I have changed my mind. That I want you to touch me. If such a proposition is acceptable to you, of course.” 

“Yes,” he said, as he moved closer to her. “I’d say that is very acceptable. So long as you wish it, lady.” She could not see his face in the darkness, but she could feel him, not even a breath away, his words warm against her lips. She trembled, shivering not in fear, but in anticipation. He reached toward her, cupping her cheek in his hand, tracing her lips with his thumb. 

And then his mouth found hers in the dark, brushing gently against hers. 

His lips were as full and soft as she remembered, his beard rough on her chin. She felt his tongue press lightly against her lips, and she parted them, and then his tongue was in her mouth and hers was meeting it, as she opened like a flower for him. 

When she had been a girl at Winterfell, she and Jeyne Poole, the steward’s daughter, had practiced kissing, the way girls do. But in all her imaginings, she had never dreamed that it could be like this to kiss a man, a man who she knew would become her lover. It was not just the feel of his lips on hers or the way his tongue coaxed and teased her or the pounding of her heart, but the blooming in her chest and core of some exotic flower that strained toward him like he was the only warm light in this frigid darkness. 

He broke the kiss, his breathing heavy, her lips hungry for the feel of his against them again. He leaned his brow against hers. “Sansa,” he breathed her name, and she felt herself quake, body and soul. She kissed him again, born soft and sweet as their first, but which grew into a wild, ravenous thing, that she was not sure would ever be satiated. 

They kissed for what seemed like hours. Seated beside each other on the bed, his arm around her, pulling him close against her, while she curled into him. But after days or perhaps it was only minutes, Sansa had lost all track of time, he eased her onto the bed, so that they were facing each other, their mouth meeting, sometimes slowly, savoring each moment of contact, and then with a need so fierce that she thought they would devour each other. He planted kisses on her lips, her forehead, her cheeks, her ears--his tongue playing with her lobes until she squirmed--her neck, the tip of her nose, and she could feel the skin of each place he touched blossomed beneath his lips. She bit his neck and stroked his beard, and pulled his hair loose of the knot that he had tied it back in, wanting to catch her fingers in the tangle of his curls. And he cupped the back of her head and stroked her cheek, and ran his hand through her waves. She pressed herself against him, crushed her breasts against his chest, wondering if he could feel her hardened nipples, through her shift and his shirt, rubbed her thigh against his erection, straining against his breeches. And even then, she wanted to be closer to him, wanted to crawl inside him, wanted to feel him inside of her. 

Her lips met his again, and she hung on them, clung to them, with hers. She felt heady and drunk on him, the room spinning around her like those feast nights when she had sneaked more wine than her mother would allow. It made her feel bold, and she wanted him to touch her, the way that she had touched herself, to tease from her the pleasure that her body could give her. So she took his hand in hers and brought it to her breast. “Touch me, Jon,” she said, as her nipple grew harder still beneath his fingers, and she moaned out his name. His breathing was ragged as he, kissing her again, brought his hand to her other breast, cupping and squeezing them, his fingers pinching her nipples over the thin fabric of her shift. 

And she now understood why her mother had always warned her about men, about giving into the temptations. Because with his hands on her breasts and lips on her, and molten desire pooling and pulsing between her legs, she knew how easy it would be to fall, how easy it would be for a woman to let, to beg for, a man to ruin her. Because she was so near begging herself. She reassured herself that she had only let things get so far because of where she was, the isolation, the loneliness, the fact that she could never go home, that such things had long since ceased to matter to her. But deep within her, she knew the truth, that in the dark all rooms are the same, and that she would be just as eager to dishonor herself with this man in Winterfell as she was here, in the wild lands beyond the wall. 

She knew this to be true, especially once he pulled down her shift and put his mouth to her breast, running his tongue around and then over the nipple, sucking hard enough to send sparks of excruciating pleasure coursing through her. She thought she heard the delicate fabric of her shift tear a bit as he forced it further down to kiss and suck and lick her other breast as she writhed beneath him, pressing her hips against him. 

His hand trailed down her body, stroking her stomach as he ran his tongue over her areola, then flicking his tongue over her nipple. When he kissed her breast again, this time she felt just the slightest pressure of his teeth, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, pushing his face, his mouth, harder against her. 

She felt his hand slip beneath her shift, his fingers lightly brush against the red hair between her legs, and she squirmed beneath him. “Please,” she said, her voice breathy and aching with desire, not caring if it was proper, not caring if he thought her wanton, not caring for anything at all but a release of the pressure building inside of her from want of this man in her bed, in her arms, in her heart. “Please, Jon.”

He moved his hand between her legs, and ran his finger lightly over her cunt, no more than a whisper in the wind, the wings of a dream. She arched herself toward him, and he smiled against her breast, sliding a finger inside of her. She moaned, and he kissed her lightly, moving his finger with agonizing slowness in and out of her. She began to move her hips against his hand, grinding against him, as his thumb pressed against her clit, and he kissed her hard and demanding, and she melted into him. He dropped his mouth back to her breast as his finger began to move with more force inside of her, harder and faster, his thumb increasing pressure on her clit until the pleasure that was running through her washed over her, pounding through her, overwhelming her, drowning her, as she cried out his name, leaving her panting. 

He kissed her again, softly, and she moved her hands to untie the laces of his breeches, though she did not know how to pleasure a man. He took her hands in his, gently pulling them away from his breeches. “Not tonight, sweet girl,” he said against her mouth. 

“Do you not want me, Jon?” Had she done something wrong? Perhaps she had been too wanton, too unladylike. Had not her mother told her that women did not often enjoy their wifely duties, and here she was moaning and writhing and carrying on like a camp follower. She had been too forward, made too obvious her desire. 

He chuckled. “You are perfect, and I want you in every way a man can want a woman, to have you, to pleasure you, if you will let me.” 

“But I have not pleasured you,” she said, and she could feel herself blushing to talk so openly about such things with a man.

“Hearing you moan my name is pleasure enough for now, Sansa,” he said her name like a caress, and she shivered as he pulled her closer to him. “There are many nights before us. And there are many ways I wish to know you.” His voice hot against her, heavy with a promise that made her body quiver with anticipation for him. He kissed her again, slowly, and that, too, was a promise. 

She curled up against him, her head on his chest, his arm around her, and she listened to his breathing, the steady beating of his heart. 

“The day you came for me,” she said. “I did not think I would find this.” 

“The day I came for you, I did not think I would find this, find you, either. I knew that I would be taking some poor girl away from her home and her family, but I could not have known it would be you. Had not hoped to dream it would lead to something like this. And then the first night I came to you, you were so afraid. ” 

She propped her head up, and she yearned to see him, wanted it more badly than anything she had ever wanted before. “I was. I thought that my life was ending that day. And in many ways it has. What I could not know was that a new one was beginning.” 

He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering on her brow. “Sweet dreams, Sansa,” he said, and she wondered what dreams could be sweeter than the waking time she had spent with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, for all of the comments and kudos. And thanks to SaraStarbuck for all of her help as a beta reader. “Do you remember the first night you spent with me, when you swore an oath never to touch me?” 
> 
> He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice sounded pained. “You’re right. I have not honored my word. I think it would be best if I resumed sleeping atop the blankets again so that similar breaches do not occur again. I must apologize to you Sansa, and assure you that although it was an accident, that does not make it any less--” 
> 
> “Jon,” Sansa said, interrupting his torrent of words. “This is not about how we have been sleeping. Well, perhaps it is, but what I meant to say, Jon,” she steeled herself. “Is that I wish to change the terms of our agreement.” 
> 
> “Sansa,” his voice was heavy, husky, raw. “What do you mean?”
> 
> “What I mean,” she said in what she hoped was a seductive tone, inching toward him on the bed, and praying to the gods that he would not reject her, for she was not sure she could survive such shame, “is that I have changed my mind. That I want you to touch me. If such a proposition is acceptable to you, of course.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning when Sansa woke, she was in the bed alone, her lips swollen from his kisses, her shift torn at the neck and hanging open around her breast, which were sore and aching from his mouth, and a winter rose on her night table with a note. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the comments and kudos, and to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading. <3

The next morning when Sansa woke, she was in the bed alone, her lips swollen from his kisses, her shift torn at the neck and hanging open around her breast, which were sore and aching from his mouth, and a winter rose on her night table with a note. 

_ My Sansa,  _

_ For a long time, I have lived in winter. You are spring and summer. _

_ Yours Always,  _

_ Jon  _

While she waited for him, she read over his note again and again, and each time a smile bloomed across her features and a blush rose in her cheeks. But she had begun to feel that notes and flowers were only a poor compensation for what she truly desired: to wake up beside him, for them to see the sun, to spend the day together, instead of being confined to the darkness of their nocturnal meetings. 

She wished that he could tell her more about the curse that had been cast on him, about the fell creature that had subjected him to it. But she had learned from stories that such transparency was rarely the way of curses, which tended to be cloaked in secrecy, ensnaring their subject in webs of silence. If only Jon could speak about what had been done to him, how much easier this would be to bear. If only her earlier investigations had provided her with answers. If only a kiss had been enough to break the spell. 

Her eyes roved over the note once again, and she resolved to herself to be content with what she had been granted. She had followed the wolf north expecting death, and instead, she had discovered a new life for herself. Not a life she had ever imagined living, but one she was now certain that she could be happy with all the same. It was not perfect, but after what he had done to her last night--after what they had done--she was certain that it was better than being married off to some lord who would grunt above her in their marriage bed until he put an heir in her belly. After last night, she knew that she could never be satisfied with such a match, not after she had seen how much more there could be between a man and a woman. 

That night, when he arrived, she wore, not a shift, but a dove grey dressing gown, a robe that she had cinched around her waist with a dark blue cord. As he took her into his arms, he smiled against her lips. “Were you afraid that I would ruin another shift?” 

“I did not want to tempt you.” 

“You, Sansa, are nothing but a temptation,” he said, as his finger traced the plunging neckline of her robe. “May I touch you, lady?” he asked, and she could feel his breath hot against her, and her body answered before her voice could, and her hand led his beneath her robe, her nipples, still sensitive from the night before hardening at the barest whisper of his fingers against them. 

He continued as he had, and every night, he asked if he might join her in bed. But now there was a new question. Every night, when he was beside her, he asked if he might touch her, and every night, his words sent a shiver of pleasure, of anticipation, through her as she thought of his hands, his tongue, his teeth, his lips on her body. So every night, she answered yes, her voice breathy, heat already coursing through her, her body craving his touch, wanting to touch his. To run her fingers and lips and tongue along the scars on his chest, which told the story of the hundreds of years he had fought. 

Some nights, they barely spoke, their mouths too full of each other’s lips and tongues and names for conversation of another sort. On nights like that, Sansa told him everything she could through her sighs, her moans, her cries, the eloquent communication of the body revealing what was in her heart. She took his hand in hers, showing him where she wanted to be touched, how she wanted to be touched, and he did the same, guiding her hand along the shaft of his cock until he spilled his seed. 

Other nights, they lay in bed curled around one another, stealing kisses between the sentences that tumbled between them as they talked for hours. 

One night, as they talked, Sansa’s stomach growled, and he requested a whole tray of lemon cakes from the invisible servants of the place. She ate with his arms around her, and she fed him bites, sharing though she had told him she never would. And when they were done, he brought her fingers to his mouth, and licked the frosting from each one, and then brought his lips to hers. 

“I wish to taste you, Sansa. If you will allow it,” he said, brushing his mouth against her neck, feeling her nod against him. 

As he untied her robe, letting it fall open, he planted a trail of kisses down her neck to her breasts to her stomach, each one blooming in her skin. It was the most exposed she had been before him, but perhaps it was the darkness, or the nights that they had been together, or need between her legs, stirred to life by his lips on her, but she did not even blush. She was so beyond propriety at this point, that the parted fabric of her dressing gown revealing her naked flesh hardly seemed to matter. 

He continued his path down her body and came to the tangle of red curls at the apex of her thighs. He gently pushed her legs apart, and before she could object, his mouth was on her, his tongue sliding along her cunt and teasing her clit, and any objections she could possibly make were blurred by, forgotten in, the surge of pleasure that tore through her. She let out a breathy moan, and he groaned in response, the vibrations playing over her cunt. He licked again, slow and savoring, and her toes curled, knees bent, and hips angled up in response. He grabbed her ass, lifting it up and pulling her to his face, his tongue thrusting inside of her. She writhed, but he held her firmly, his tongue tracing feather light circles around her clit before dipping back into her, licking along the length of her cunt, his movements slow, deliberate, teasing. 

“Do you like this, Sansa?” he asked, his voice thick and humming against her. 

“Yes,” she said, more a moan than a word. 

“Good. I like this, too, sweet girl,” he said, and then his mouth was against her again. 

His tongue flicked against her clit, and sharp pleasure shot through her, causing her to cry out. He took one hand from her hips, and slid a finger inside of her, then another. His lips were on the hood of her clit, then his teeth, lightly grazing over it. Sansa melted around him, pleasure like a river roaring through her, waves pounding rhythmically against her in, her, consuming her, drowning her. 

She grabbed for him as she convulsed, unraveled, came apart and back together again, pulling him back to her until she was kissing him, the taste of lemon cakes and her cunt on his lips. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, and fumbled with the laces of his breeches, untying them, pushing them down, wrapping her hand around his cock, already hard. She stroked it the way he had shown her, running her fingers along the shaft, circling them around the tip, while he groaned into her mouth. With her other hand she cupped his balls, while he grabbed her breast, his other hand between her legs. He slipped a finger inside of her, and she whimpered. 

“Sansa,” he moaned, and he came, his seed on her belly. He used his linen shirt to help her clean it off, and afterward they lay together, her bare chest against his. 

“Have there been other women before me?” she asked. “Other lovers, I mean.” 

He swallowed and paused before answering. “Yes, there was one before you. But that was a very long time ago. Before the curse.” 

“And you loved her?”   


“Dearly.” 

“What happened?”

“She died.”

“I’m sorry.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “It is no fault of yours, sweet girl.” 

“What was she like?”

“She was wild as a forest fire.” Sansa could feel the sad smile in his voice. “She was fearless and fierce and challenging. And it got her killed.” 

“Still, you loved her for it.” 

“I suppose I did.” 

“I am sorry that she is no longer with you.” 

“Thank you, Sansa. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with her death. For many years I wanted to die as well. You have changed things for me. Made me see things differently.” 

“For me, there has not been anyone else. No other lovers, I mean,” she said, her confession quiet in the darkness, a blush coming to her cheeks. 

“Yes, I seem to recall that your first night here, you told me you were a maid.” 

“Not just that. I mean there was no boy or lord that I let into my affections. As a girl, I suppose I had a few foolish fascinations, but there was never anyone to whom I was seriously attached. I could not let myself. I knew that you might one day come for me, and I could not add that kind of love to all the things that I would be forced to leave behind.”

“I am sorry for that, sweet girl. To live with that fate hanging over you must have been exceedingly difficult.”

“It was not so much my fate that was difficult to bear, as the uncertainty of it. To not know if I was to be taken or where or what might await me.” She fell silent for a moment before continuing. “And the other women, the other six, you never,” she paused, “did this with any of them?” 

“No. No such a thing would not have been right.” 

“Jon, what happened to the others? The girls that came before me.”

He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “Their stories, I’m afraid, are not entirely happy ones. Like you, they were given a choice. As I said to you, they declined.

“Lyessa, Jonelle, and Arsa all made a life here, and though I am sure it was a sad and solitary one, I hope it was at least comfortable. I gave them what company I could, but it was not the same, not as it is with you. They resented me, I’m sure, and I blame them not, but we never became more than acquaintances, despite the years we shared this prison.”

“What happened to them?” she asked softly. 

“What happens to all mortals eventually. Valar Morghulis. They lived as they died, I have no doubt, yearning to return home.” 

“And the others?” 

“Allarya and Lyanne, they did more than yearn. They attempted to escape, to make their way south to Winterfell. They were both clever, strong, and resourceful, and I believe that under normal circumstances, they could have made it. I wish they had. But the lands around this castle are similarly enchanted. It seems that only I can navigate them, and even for me it is perilous. When I found them, I brought their bodies to the Freefolk, who burned them as is the custom of this place.” Sansa felt a shiver run through her, remembering the fear of finding her own frozen death beneath a blanket of snow, as she was led North that day he came for her.

“Alys, though, was the saddest case. She went quite mad, talking and dancing and laughing with phantoms only she could see. Manufactured by her mind to keep her company, I suppose. Or perhaps they truly were there. This place has enough ghosts, that I would not doubt a few more. She stopped sleeping, and then eating and drinking. In the end, that’s what took her. But I was forced to witness her suffering. After her, I swore there would be no more girls.”

“What changed your mind?”

“The choice was not mine to make,” he said darkly. “The choice has never been mine.”

“And what would have happened to you had I refused you?”

“You were my last chance, Sansa. Had you denied me, I would have been doomed.” 

“What would have happened to you?”

“I… I’m sorry, Sansa. I cannot…”

“You did not tell me, the night you asked me to make my choice. You never said I was your final hope to break the curse.”

“The choice was yours and yours alone,” he said softly. “Just as it had been for the ones before you. I refused to influence you unduly, nor did I wish to coerce you into the decision that I hoped, prayed, you would make. Honor would not allow it.”

“Did it not occur to you, the danger of so much honor.”

“Honor is all I have left. I could not, would not, sacrifice it.”

“And yet, I have sacrificed mine for you.” 

“And, therein lies the difference,” he ran his fingers through her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I would gladly dishonor myself for you, Sansa. To save you. To protect you. To serve you. But I cannot do so for selfish motives. I will not for myself.” 

She turned her face to him, running her hand along his cheek, bringing her lips to his. “The first night I was here, I asked you whether you were a beast or a man.” 

“I remember.” 

“I believe I have found my answer.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fortnight later, when Jon came to her room, he seemed sadder than he had in many weeks. She had become accustomed to him, to his moods, his habits, that she needed to spend no more than a few minutes with him before she knew that all was not right.
> 
> “Jon,” she said softly. “Please, tell me what weighs on you so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your very kind comments and kudos. And thanks to Sarastarbuck for betareading. <3

A fortnight later, when Jon came to her room, he seemed sadder than he had in many weeks. She had become accustomed to him, to his moods, his habits, that she needed to spend no more than a few minutes with him before she knew that all was not right.

“Jon,” she said softly. “Please, tell me what weighs on you so.”

“Your first night here,” he replied, his voice gruff. “I made you a promise. If there was ever a way for you to return home, I would see that you did. It would seem that I can now fulfill that pledge.”

Home. The word filled her with hope that she had dared not dream during her time in this enchanted castle. She could see Winterfell again, see her family again, her mother and father. Robb and Theon, Bran and Rickon, even Arya. She yearned for all of them in a way that she could not give voice to, that she had buried so deeply inside herself, never thinking that seed of a wish, a desire, could ever possibly sprout in soil so cold and barren as that of the land she had found herself in. It was all that she had longed for during her first days in the castle and never imagined could be.

And she longed for it still, though not with all her heart, for despite her eagerness to see her family, there was no small part of her that recoiled from the idea of leaving this enchanted castle, of leaving Jon, who had come to her bed a stranger, but had become her home.

“How?” she whispered. “How is such a thing possible?”

“I would tell you if I could, but I fear that I cannot. But just know that it is, Sansa, and that I will see you home, if that is what you wish.”

“It is what I wish. To go home to Winterfell, to see my family,” she said, and then she took his hand in hers. “But I also wish to return to you. If you would be kind enough to give me three weeks, three weeks to be with my family, then I will return and I will be yours. I will not abandon you to your curse.”

She felt him relax beside her. “Three weeks,” he breathed. “It shall seem an eternity, but if that is all you ask, Sansa, then I shall give it to you gladly.”

She kissed him, full of warmth and tenderness. “Thank you, Jon,” she said. “Thank you for this kindness.”

“Your joy is thanks enough,” he said, though he could not entirely dispel the sorrow from his words, and then paused. “There is one thing I must ask of you, Sansa,” he continued, his voice serious. “You must tell no one of this place. Of the curse from which I suffer. Of what I asked of you and what you have given. When your parents ask, simply assure them that you are in no danger and that you are well provided for here.”

“I will,” she said. “I promise. I will speak no word of you to anyone.” Her cheeks colored at the very idea of telling her mother, who had raised her to be a proper lady, of the ways that she now spent her nights, of the way that she writhed and moaned and begged for more when his head was between her legs, the way that she took his manhood into her hand, her mouth, until he groaned and spilled his seed. Her maidenhead remained intact, but she was no doubt ruined.

He kissed her, long and deep. “It shall truly feel like winter with you gone.”

That night, as they slept, they clung to each other, and Sansa thought that perhaps it might be a mistake to let him go. But she could not give up this opportunity, this chance to return to her family, to see those, who she had thought she had lost forever, to see the castle she had grown up in and the bed she had slept in. Still, she breathed in his scent, pine and fresh snow, and just the barest hint of animal wildness, and she touched her lips to his shoulder, and hoped that it would be enough to carry with her in his absence.

She woke, as always, to a winter rose and a note.

_ My dearest Sansa, _

_ Dress warmly, my lady, and pack rations. And when you are ready to depart, ask Aiduz to guide you out. Know that until you return, you will be in my heart and I will remain _

_ Yours in Deepest Affection,  
_ _ Jon _

She rose from the bed, and braided back her hair and opened the door to her wardrobe. She found a sturdy grey wool dress, well made, but not nearly as fine as the garments she had become accustomed to wearing in this place. She also found a pair of thick wool stockings, a white cloak, trimmed in soft rabbit fur, a pair of warm winter boots and fur-lined mittens. Finding a satchel, she folded a second dress of light blue, as practical as the first, and slipped it inside. She looked longingly at some of the silk dresses that she favored, but they would be out of place in Winterfell, so she left them behind. The remainder of the meat, cheese, and bread left from her breakfast, went into the satchel as well. She picked up the story of Bael the Bard, the first book he had given her, and in which she had pressed some of the roses he had left for her. She could not leave it behind. Nor could she bear to part with his notes, so she took them with her to read when her longing for him needed a salve.

When she was ready, she summoned Aiduz. “I am going to leave for a few weeks,” she told the light, which blinked mournfully at her. “I will return. I promise,” she assured it. “And I will miss you while I’m gone.” 

The light led her to a corridor that she remembered from her first day in the castle, but which she had never come across in all her wanderings these many months. There was the table where the little silver bell had lain, and she returned it, unable but to feel like doing so was yet another goodbye.

He was there in his wolf form, and she had nearly forgotten how large, how fierce he seemed when he wore that skin. But since she had come to know the man, the beast frightened her not at all, and she reached up to pat his cheek, as he nuzzled into her touch.

He studied her a moment, taking in her face. “It is good to look on you again,” he said softly. “Even if it is as a beast, and not a man.” He shook his head as if clearing it. “Are you ready to depart?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

He knelt before her. “You may ride on my back, Sansa. The terrain is difficult, and we will travel faster if you do so.”

She climbed atop him, feeling herself flush a bit at his heat between her legs, thinking about the man within the beast’s form, and wondering what it felt like for him to have her astride him. He padded down the corridor and then they were once again outside, and Sansa, looking back at the cliff, could see no indication of the sprawling castle that lay within it nor the location of the door through which they had passed. 

The sunlight reflecting off the snow nearly blinded her. For all of the months inside, she was unaccustomed to the brightness of the sun, to the whiteness of the snow that stretched around them, disrupted only by jagged mountain peaks, sheer rock faces that thrust up from the endless blanket of white that covered the land.

He was right, the terrain was difficult, and she knew she would not be able to navigate it alone. There were times when she had to press her face into the white fur of the wolf beneath her to avoid looking over the edge of the mountain passes they traversed to avoid seeing the perilous drop below, the gorges with ice so deep it looked almost blue. “Do not be afraid,” the wolf, no Jon, for he was Jon no matter what skin he wore, she reminded herself, reassured her. And she took comfort in being able to press herself against him, even if the hard, lean muscles of the beast were so different from the man she had come to know, whose body she had explored, the map of which she had traced with her fingers, her lips, her tongue.

They passed into a valley, coming to a lake, frozen, and perfect as glass, a lonely mountain towering above it, like a single fang piercing the sky.

Then it was back into the mountains, Jon’s tread sure as he saw her safely home, even as the sky began to darken. The sunset was the most beautiful she had ever seen, the bright oranges and pinks fading into lavender and indigo, reflected in the glitter fields of snow that stretched out around them.

“We must stop here tonight, Sansa,” he said. And she marveled once again at the voice of the man she cared so deeply for coming from the wolf before her. It was not exactly the same, but near enough that there was no mistaking it, and she took great comfort in the sound.

“When you brought me,” she said. “We traveled but a day and a night.”

“That was different. This journey will not be so easy. We still travel more swiftly than men and horses, but not so quickly as the first time I took you.”

She contemplated asking him why, but suspected that she already knew his response: that there were things he could not tell her, was not permitted to explain, that he was bound to silence just as he was this animal form.

“I cannot turn into a man outside the bounds of my castle,” he reminded her. “But if you curl against my fur, I shall keep you warm.”

She ate some of her provisions, and he nudged her elbow. “Look,” he told her, directing her attention to the sky, where waves of gold and blue, pink and violet, crimson and green shimmered and danced.

She sat mesmerized, and he placed his head in her lap. She stroked it gently while she watched the light, which rippled and flamed across the night sky. “It is so beautiful,” she said, breaking the silence. 

“It is a cold and unforgiving place,” he replied. “But it does have its charms.”

“There is, undoubtedly, magic here.”

The journey had been long, and Sansa, though she had not walked, felt weary. She laid down, pulling her cloak tight, and he curled himself around her, and she fell asleep, breathing in his warmth, and his smell, which was not quite the scent she had wrapped herself in during their many nights together, but, like his voice, was comfortingly familiar.

They traveled another day, as he brought her down from the mountains, and into the forest, haunted the legends claimed, that stretched across the northern lands. The pines were old and seemed wilder than the trees of even the most untamed woods around Winterfell.

They came to an ancient wall, towering hundreds of feet and fallen into disrepair, and they passed through a section that had crumbled and fallen long ago.

“The Freefolk once scaled this structure to raid the lands of our ancestors,” he told her.

“It’s a marvel that any of them survived.”

“You have seen where they live. They are a hardy people. And difficult to kill.” And had he been a man, she could have sworn that she heard a smile in his voice.

“You are quieter as a wolf than as a man,” she observed after one of their long stretches of silence.

“It feels odd to speak in this form,” he admitted. “Unnatural. Though, truth be told, I spoke little enough as a man until your arrival. My home is a lonely place, and there are few opportunities for conversation.”

“I will return to you,” she reassured him.

“I know,” was all that he needed to say.

As they traveled further south, the lands became greener, tender blades of grass bravely bursting through the endless white. 

He paused for a minute, breathing deeply.

“Is everything alright, Jon?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice raw. “It’s just that it has been many years since I have seen the green and growing things of the wild. It is beautiful. All this life.” He shook his head as if to dislodge the thought. “I’m sorry.” 

“No need to be,” she said, and she lightly ran her fingers through his fur. “The spring has come early,” she observed. “They say it always does the years the wolf comes to take a maiden.”

He exhaled sharply in a huff. “It is nothing but superstition. The seasons turn as they will, at least they do in these Southern lands.” 

She smiled at this old joke between them. “Don’t let my proud Northern people hear you call these lands the South.”

“They are to me,” he said with a playful growl, and she patted his head, and wished that she need not leave him to return home. 

He stopped where he had that day that she had first seen him, first followed him into the winter and the unknown. “Here I must leave you.”

“I wish that you could come with me,” she said, dismounting.

“My place is in the North. The true North. Look for me when the full moon hangs heavy in the sky. I will come for you then.”

“And I will keep faith with you. I promise. Thank you, Jon.” She kissed his snout, and he licked her cheek, and then she walked toward Winterfell.

When she was halfway to the castle, she stopped and turned, and she could just make out, in the distance, the figure of the white wolf, watching her mournfully as she returned home.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa had barely passed through the gates of Winterfell when Robb scooped her up in his arms, squeezing her in a tight hug, the grin wide across his face. 
> 
> “Sansa,” he exclaimed. “Is it really you, sister? We thought we would never see you again.”
> 
> “Yes, Robb,” she half said, half laughed. “It’s me. I swear.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for all of your kudos and very kind comments. I know it will be hard to have Sansa and Jon separated for the next few chapters, but I hope that you enjoy nonetheless. 
> 
> Thanks always to Sarastarbuck for betareading (and just being a wonderful friend in general). <3

Sansa had barely passed through the gates of Winterfell when Robb scooped her up in his arms, squeezing her in a tight hug, the grin wide across his face. 

“Sansa,” he exclaimed. “Is it really you, sister? We thought we would never see you again.”

“Yes, Robb,” she half said, half laughed. “It’s me. I swear.” 

And then there were more arms around her as Theon and Bran and Arya embraced her. Then little Rickon, who at only five, could not run as fast as his siblings. Sansa had missed his birthday, and now he clung to her so desperately that she feared he would never let her go. What would he do, she wondered, when he learned that she would have to depart again.

It had been scarcely more than half a year since she had seen her siblings, but she was struck by how different they all seemed to her after her absence. Robb and Theon were no longer the boys that she remembered, but seemed, in the time she was away, to have grown into men, their shoulders broader, their faces bearded. Bran had grown tall and lanky. And though Arya was as short as ever, she was leaner, fiercer, than Sansa remembered. Even Rickon had lost most of his baby fat. “You’re getting so big,” she said, as he pressed his face into her stomach.

She wondered what changes her brothers and sister saw in her, how she had been marked by her absence, by her time in the enchanted castle, by Jon and the things they had done together in the darkness. And it was all she could do to prevent herself from blushing at the thought.

Her siblings parted and she saw her mother approaching, running toward her, laughing and weeping, and Sansa felt tears well up in her eyes as well. “My girl, my darling girl,” her mother said, as she held Sansa’s face, her shoulders, her hands, as though making sure that she was real, as though she feared that if she released her hold on her daughter that she would disappear again. 

And then, over her mother’s head, Sansa saw her father. There were tears in his eyes as well, but he did not cry with the abandon of his Southern wife. He was a man of the North and he was as steady as the rock of Winterfell, though his eyes betrayed some of the disbelief, the joy, he felt at her return. He held his arms out to her and she rushed to him, and he pulled her close in an embrace. “My daughter,” he breathed, his voice now thick with tears. “I did not dream to see you again. Not in this life.” 

“How did you manage to escape his clutches?” her mother asked. “We did not think he would let you live, let alone return to us.” 

“He did,” Sansa said. “The wolf’s master. He has been kind to me. And I did not escape. He let me go.” And though she did her best to keep her tone neutral, to school her features in the impassive mask of a lady that she had long ago learned to wear, she wondered if her face, her voice revealed all that Jon had come to mean to her. 

“Why would he do such a thing?” asked Arya. 

“I cannot know for certain,” she replied, not wishing to reveal that she had some notions. He had let her go for honor, because he had made her a promise that he would keep, no matter what it cost him. But also, she found herself hoping he had let her go for other reasons too. That his decision to let her return was not only his attempt to keep his word, that he had let her go because of the affection he had come to have for her in the months that they had together. That he wished her to be happy, even if it required him to make this sacrifice. That he might feel for her all that she had come to feel for him. 

“You look well, daughter,” her mother said, studying her face, and Sansa did her best to meet her mother’s eyes, though she feared what sins her mother might read within them. “Your needs have been seen to?”

“Yes,” she answered, trying not to think about the needs that she had only recently learned she had and just how skillfully Jon had attended to them. “I want for nothing. Except to return to you.” 

“And now you have,” her father observed. 

“I have. Though my time here is short. I may only stay in your company for three weeks, and then I must return.”

“Surely not,” Caitlin said. “We cannot have you back only to lose you again. It is too cruel.” 

“When I was granted this reprieve, I gave my word. Three weeks and I would follow him once again.”

“If you gave your word, daughter,” her father said, looking at her steadily, “then you must honor it, though it will pain us all.”

“And we must make the most of the time she is here,” said her mother, with cheeriness that was only a bit forced. “We should hold a feast, Ned. To celebrate her return.” 

“That is a fine idea, Cat,” her father said, smiling warmly at his wife. 

“Would you like that, Sansa?” asked Bran, who had been watching her curiously. 

“I think I should. Very much,” she replied with a genuine smile. She had always loved feasts with their fine foods and gowns and gallant young men leading her in a basse danse or a saltarello. She felt her features fall for just a second, for she knew that the young man she most wished to dance with would not, could not, be in attendance. 

“We shall have all the things you love the most, Sansa. Dresses. Dancing. Lemon cakes,” said Theon, sweeping her into his arms and twirling her around, while Rickon chanted “cake” in the background. 

His hands were on her waist, and she wondered if he had always touched her in such a manner. She had always thought of Theon as a brother, and he had always behaved as such, teasing her and annoying her. Theon had always been quick to jape, to mock her, leaving Robb and Arya laughing and Sansa threatening that if they did not let her be she would tell mother or Septa Mordane. But now his face was soft in a way she had not remembered it, his fingers lingered on her side and her mother watched him sharply, and she questioned whether what had been boyish friendliness had become something different, something more. Perhaps, she thought, he can sense, somehow, the kind of woman I have become.

She excused herself from his touch as politely and gracefully as she could. “It has been a difficult journey,” she said. “And as much as I wish to see you all, I am weary.”

“Of course. Of course,” her mother said. “How inconsiderate of me to have not thought of that. Come, Sansa, your room remains as it was before you left. I had not the heart to change it.”

Sansa detangled herself from another round of hugs and kisses, and followed her mother, who insisted on showing her daughter the way, despite the fact that Sansa knew it well. 

When she was alone in her chambers, Sansa sank into her bed, the mattress much harder than the one to which she had grown accustomed. She was weary from her journey, but more than that, she had become so used to solitude that she felt overwhelmed by having so many people around her. And she felt herself missing Jon. Foolish, she knew, for it had been but an hour since she had left him. Yet she knew she would not be with him that evening, and the thought of it pained her. 

She lay sleepless on her bed, knowing she should take more comfort in her room, which indeed was unchanged since she had left, but unable to. Even by herself in her room, the sounds of castle life reached her, the barking of hounds, the murmuring of servants, the shouts of men at arms, a life that she still cherished, but to which she was no longer certain she belonged. 

There was a quiet knock on her door, and she called out “Come in,” unable to stop herself from thinking about all the times that Jon had knocked and waited for her to bid him enter.

“I thought you might be sleeping,” Arya said. 

“I wasn’t. Just resting.” She sat up, making space on the bed for Arya, but her sister remained across the room, arms crossed and body rigid. 

“Is that all?” 

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed different somehow. The others didn’t notice, at least I don’t think they did. But I did. I noticed.” 

“Different how?” Sansa’s mind raced. Could her sister know what she had done? Had let Jon do? All the ways she had known his mouth, his hands, his body, all the ways that he had known hers. Was the dishonor that she had brought upon herself in the darkness written plainly across her now in the light of her former home? 

“Like you are not entirely happy to be here.” 

“Don’t be foolish, of course I am. It is all I wanted for many months.” It wasn’t really a lie. She had wanted to return to Winterfell, desperately. She had missed her family, missed the life that had been hers. But at some point during her time with Jon, she had resolved that no matter how much she had longed to return, she never would, and she had begun to quietly, slowly let it go. And now that she was here, now that she had what she never thought she would, she was unsure of what to make of it all. 

“Is it?”   


“Well, perhaps not all,” and she hoped that Arya would not recognize the blush that creeped up her neck for the admission that it was, hoped that her sister could not tell how desperately she had wanted Jon, his lips, his fingers, his tongue, the way he made her unravel completely, but also the way that he held her hand and listened to her thoughts as though they were something worthy of consideration, the way that they had just  _ been _ together, not lord and lady, but Jon and Sansa. “But I was desperately homesick.” 

“And now that you’re home?” 

She sighed. “It is different from what I remember. Or I am. I cannot tell what has changed.” 

“All of it,” Arya said as she sat on the bed beside her, and though her sister’s expression remained stoic and impassive, Sansa thought she heard a bit of weary sadness in her words.

“Arya,” she said softly. “What troubles you?” 

She reached out to touch her sister’s arm, but Arya pulled away and did not answer. Instead, she asked, “What was it like?”

“What was what like?” 

“To go with him?” 

How could she possibly answer that question? Even if she had not sworn to Jon to stay silent about their time together. What could she possibly tell her sister? 

“It was not what I expected.” 

“Tell me everything.” Arya said, taking Sansa’s hands in her own, her smile wide and excited, the first hint of the wild little sister that Sansa had left behind. 

“I can’t,” Sansa replied, disentangling herself from her sister’s grasp, hating to disappoint her, but knowing that she must. 

“Why not?”

“I made a promise.” 

“To the wolf?” 

“Yes.” To the wolf, to the man, to Jon. 

“But surely you can tell your sister.” 

“I swore to tell no one.” 

“I can be no one.” 

“Arya,” Sansa said with a smile. “It was a long journey for we traveled far North of the wall. And the place he took me to, well, it was enchanted long ago.” 

“By whom?”

“He could not tell me. But I promise that he treats me kindly and I want for nothing.” 

“For someone who loves adventure stories so much, you are terrible at telling them.” Arya said, her lips twisted in a grin. 

“Maybe one day I will be able to tell the fuller tale, but for now I must honor my promise.” 

Arya looked at her sister, her eyes once again serious. “What if a promise was made for you? One that you could not honor?” 

“What’s wrong, Arya?”

Her sister looked down, twisting her hands in her lap. Sansa thought it might be the first time that she had seen Arya so uncertain.

“Father has found a husband for me. It has been arranged.”

“Oh,” Sansa said. Her sister had always been adamant in her insistence that she would never wed. But despite her protestations, as the daughter of a lord, it could not be otherwise. Sansa was not the only one with a fate from which she could not escape. Such were the lives of daughters, to be traded and sacrificed. “Who?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Ramsay Bolton,” Arya sighed. “I hate him. Father knows it. But he can’t refuse the offer. The alliance is too beneficial.” She looked down at her hands. “He’s a monster.”

Sansa took her sister's hands in her own. “I am so sorry.”

Arya let out a sharp laugh. “Part of me wishes that our lives had been switched. But there really is no difference between them, is there?”

There is, Sansa longed to tell her sister, for she had, somehow, managed to find happiness, while she feared her sister never would. But that was only because Jon was different. Jon was… well Jon was Jon and to say so would be to reveal too much, so she remained silent.

She had gone with a wolf and had come to know the man within him. Her sister would wed a man and whose shape hid a beast far worse than a wolf or any of the wild things that hunted in the North.

“Gods, I want adventure,” Arya sighed. “And you’ve been to the wild lands of the North.”

“If it is any consolation, my life there has been surprisingly dull.” Sansa said with a small smile, thinking about those early days, when time had stretched endlessly before her, impossible to fill.

“But to have journeyed there at all…” Arya said, trailing off, her voice heavy with longing.

So Sansa told her what she could of her journey, of what she had seen, the endless snow, the freezing cold, the colors that danced in the sky. Arya leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder and Sansa idly stroked her hair. 

It had never been like this between them. Before she had left, they had, unable to understand each other—no more than the sun could understand the moon, their father said—-fought constantly. But everything had changed. Sansa. Her home. Her sister. Her family. Winterfell was not the place she remembered and she was not the girl who had left it. But it could still be a home to her. It had not lost that. She had not lost that. Not entirely. At least for the next three weeks until he returned for her, and then she would truly and fully make her home with him. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had difficulty falling asleep that night, despite her exhaustion. Her bed, though smaller than the one she shared with Jon, felt too large, too cold, too lonely without him. She had grown too accustomed to curling into him at night, to letting the soft rhythm of his breathing lull her to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was super productive this weekend, which means that I get to post two chapters this week to thank you all for your kind comments and kudos. 
> 
> Also, thanks to SaraStarbuck for betareading and being the moral center of our D&D group. 
> 
> I expect to have chapter 16 up for you on Friday.

She had difficulty falling asleep that night, despite her exhaustion. Her bed, though smaller than the one she shared with Jon, felt too large, too cold, too lonely without him. She had grown too accustomed to curling into him at night, to letting the soft rhythm of his breathing lull her to sleep. 

After what felt like hours of tossing and turning, she had lit her bedside table and pulled his letters from her satchel. It was not the same, of course, as him being there with her, to hold her, to kiss her, to calm her. But it was, at least, something, and it brought comfort to her heart, warmed it, pacified it, even if her body remained cold and restless and alone.

The next morning, after she had broken her fast, Robb found her. “Let us speak, sister,” he said, as he led her to the privacy of his solar.

He stood awkwardly for a few minutes before saying anything and when he finally did, it was in a rush. “Are you truly safe, Sansa? You can lie to mother and father, but don’t lie to me. Please.” 

“I have not lied, Robb. Not to you, nor to mother or father. I am safe and I have been treated with kindness.” There was much she withheld from him, had to withhold from all of them, but she had not spoken false. It was the truth, if not the whole of it. 

He exhaled, and his posture relaxed. “That is good to hear. I have been thinking a lot. Keeps me up half the night. But, you know, after father passes, and though I hope that will not be for many years, I will be lord here, and I don’t know that I could have made the choice he did. I don’t know that I could do it, give up a child, a daughter…” he trailed off

“You needn’t worry. I will be the last.”

“How can you know that?” 

She shrugged. “He told me.”

“The wolf? And you trust him?” 

“His master. And, yes, I trust him.” With my life. With my heart. “He has given me no reason not to.”

“He kidnapped you. He took you away from your family, from your home.” 

“The bargain was not made by him alone. You know that, Robb. He may have taken me, but it’s only because our ancestors, our father, agreed to give me away. To trade a daughter is not too hard a thing. Lords do it all the time.” 

“That doesn’t make it right.” 

She smiled sadly. “Remember that when you have daughters of your own, and then, I think, you will be a better lord, a better man, than they were. Than even father is.” 

He grinned. “That time may be nearer than you think.”

“Have you fathered a child, Robb?”

“Gods, no.” He laughed. “Not that near. But I think I’ve found a woman. One I’d like to have by my side, who might, one day, give me sons and daughters, too.”

“Who is she?” Sansa said, beaming at her brother, who grinned bashfully in response. “The Carstark girl? Alys was her name, was it not?” And Sansa, with a shudder, remembered another Alys, Jon’s story of a girl who went mad from loneliness, from being forced to leave her family, from being traded for her people, but she tried to banish such thoughts from her mind as she smiled at her brother. “And does she feel the same for you?”

“She has said she does, so I hope it is true. But it is not Alys. Her name is Jayne. Jayne Westerling.” And the way he said her name revealed all Sansa needed to know about his affections. 

“I do not know the Westerlings.”

“No. I don’t suppose you would. They are a small family. Southern.”

“Oh,” said Sansa, and her heart broke a little for her brother. Though their father had taken a Southern wife, such things were generally not done in the North. And Caitlin Stark has been a Tully, one of the most influential and powerful families in the South. Caitlin had been given to Eddard Stark to assure an alliance. A love match with a girl from a house of no consequence… it was not the sort of marriage the future Lord of Winterfell could hope for. In some ways, sons were no freer than daughters. “Have you spoken to father? Told him of your attachment.”

“Not yet,” he said sheepishly. He knew, then, that such a marriage was unlikely to occur, and Sansa would not force on him a truth that he would be unable to avoid for too much longer. 

“I wish you joy, brother,” she said and squeezed his shoulder affectionately.

“Thank you. And you, Sansa. You truly are well?”

“Yes. I am, truly.” She wished she could tell him the whole of it, reveal what Jon had come to mean to her, reassure him that he too might find happiness, even if it was not with his Jayne. But she had made a promise, so she said nothing more.

Later that day, Theon found her alone. She was walking in the godswood, the quietest place in Winterfell. She could still hear the life of the castle, but it was dulled, muffled by the trees, the rustling of their branches. The woods offered her a much needed respite from a place that overwhelmed her after her time away. She did not remember the castle being so loud, so busy, so full of people bustling through the halls and about their lives, and after the silent solitude of so many months, she needed the quiet that the forest offered.

It was spring, and the leaves on the ash and elm were still bright and fresh and young, contrasted with the darker, enduring shade of the pines. There were wild flowers straining toward what light managed to pass through the thick bows of the densely crowded trees. It smelled of earth and dirt, so unlike the crisp, clean snow of the lands she had come to call her home. She found herself wandering toward the heated pools at the forest’s heart, and she thought, with a blush, of that room of the castle. The memory of her hands soon became a fantasy of his, and she ached for Jon. 

“Sansa,” Theon called out, as he hurried toward her, disrupting her thoughts and causing the color to rise higher in her cheeks. 

“Theon,” she said by way of greeting. She had not been avoiding him, exactly, but she also had not sought him out. She had not forgotten the feel of his hands on her waist. 

“May I walk with you awhile?” 

“If you wish.” 

He offered her his arm, which she took lightly, and though she could sense that he wished to speak, he said nothing. 

She had grown used to silence during her time in the enchanted castle. But that was a hush of quietude, sometimes loneliness. The silence growing between Theon and her was not one of stillness, but had a tempest roiling just beneath its surface. 

“I never much cared for this part of the castle growing up,” she said, so as just to say something, to cut through the gale noiselessly amassing. “It was always so wild, so dark.”

“And now?” 

“And now I no longer seem to mind.”

“I suppose beyond the wall you became accustomed to wildness.” He paused, and she could feel it coming, whatever it was he felt he had to say to her. “You don’t have to go back.” 

“I made a promise.”

“You could break it. You could… I would… we could run away together. I could take you South where you would be safe. You wouldn’t have to worry about him.” He turned to face her. “I would marry you, Sansa. A part of me always thought, hoped, that your father would arrange a match between us.” He, awkwardly, got down on one knee before her. “If you would have me, Sansa, I would take you away from here, out of danger. We could go to my home. Then the wolf would have to cross the sea to take you back.” 

“Theon,” Sansa said, softly, gently. “Please stop.” She could not take it any longer, him looking up at her, so earnestly, so full of plans for a future that could never be. “It’s a pretty picture, Theon. But we both know it is impossible.” 

He sheepishly got to his feet and took her hands in his. “Why not?” The question was quiet, but heavy, loaded with humiliation and heartbreak. 

“You know why not,” she said kindly. 

“I don’t care if you made a promise.” 

“I do.” 

“People break promises all the time.” 

“I won’t. Besides,” she said with a soft smile, “would you want a wife who would so easily break her oaths. That might leave you in a very unhappy marriage.” 

“I want you, Sansa.” 

“You have wanted others in the past. And will want still more in the future.” He opened his mouth to speak. “I appreciate your desire to protect me, Theon. I really do. But I gave my word.” And my heart, she thought, but did not say, for it would be cruel to his to do so.

“I would be a good husband to you,” he said, and she could tell in his open face, that he meant it, that he believed he would, or at the very least would try to be.

“I know you would. And you will be. To some other maiden, who will be so lucky to have you. But not to me.” She forced herself to meet his eyes, and felt her heart break, just a little, for him. But, even had she not made a promise to Jon, she could never agree to marry Theon, because if his declaration had made one thing clear to her, it was that she wanted no other man than Jon. That she could imagine herself married to none but him. And if he could not or would not wed her, then she would rather be his mistress than a wife to any other lord. “Now,” she said briskly, a perfect imitation of her mother. “Let’s put that behind us, shall we? For I have but a short while to visit, and I do so want to do so as your friend, Theon.” She held out her hand to him. 

He took it. “Of course, Sansa,” he said, squeezing it gently. “I will always be your friend. But, if you change your mind. For any reason. Promise me that you will come to me and let me take you far away from here.”

“I will,” she said. She knew that day would never come to pass, but, she suspected, so did Theon, and it would do no good to spend her few weeks at Winterfell arguing with him about her resolve. 

He smiled broadly at her. “It is good to have you home.” 

“It is good to be here.” 

He looked as though he might say more, but he did not, and they spent the rest of their time wandering through the godswood engulfed by the tranquil hush of the trees.

After her walk, Sansa retired to her room. She opened the copy of Bael the Bard that Jon had lent her and turned to the page where she had pressed the winter rose he had given her. The flower had long ago lost its scent, but the delicate petals had retained their deep blue color, and she reached out to run a finger lightly over the bloom. 

She missed him. Desperately. With body and soul. And her fingers moved to the laces of her dress, so that they might slip beneath the fabric, to run over her nipples, her breasts, the places that Jon had kissed and licked and bitten. She let out a soft moan, and then quieted herself, because unlike her home with Jon, here there were servants and siblings to overhear her. 

She lay on the bed and hiked up her skirts and ran a finger along her cunt, which was already slick and yearning. She touched herself the way Jon would, featherlight, teasing her until she was panting and begging for release. When she finally slipped a finger inside of herself, she could not help but let a moan escape her at the feeling of pleasure, of release. She imagined him, the way that he would kiss and nip at her breasts, running his tongue around her nipples, while his finger was inside her. She ran her thumb over her clit, holding in her cry as she came. 

Afterwards, she straightened her clothing and fixed her hair, all too aware of the smell of her sex in the room and hoping that none of her siblings, or even worse, her mother or father would knock. An at dinner, she was quiet, picking at her food, and embarrassed to meet anyone’s gaze for fear that they would read in the brightness of her eyes and flush of her cheeks how she spent her afternoon. 

And for the first time she understood why people would brave the cold and the fell things that dwelled in it beyond the wall. Because even here, in her home, surrounded by the people she loved, she felt trapped in a way that she had not with Jon. If her mother knew how she had touched herself hours before, what she had thought about while she did so, how she had spent the nights while she was away, Lady Stark would be appalled, and Sansa would be disgraced. But north of the wall, she had freed herself from those rules of behavior, no longer did things because they were what was expected of a young woman. Instead, she did what felt right, to her body, in her heart. She did not have to worry about what society would think, because society was below the wall and there was no one in those lands to judge her. It was a wild place, and Sansa was beginning to realize that it had already made her a bit wild as well. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weeks passed slower than Sansa had expected. She missed Jon and had trouble sleeping. She longed for him most at night, though such a thing was to be expected, for the darkness had become theirs and she lay awake in her bed, willing herself to fall asleep so that she might dream of him. During the day, she was content to sit with her mother or play with Rickon or talk with Bran or Robb or Arya, with whom she had grown close, the sisters surprising no one more than themselves with their new found camaraderie. It was Arya, Sansa knew, who she would miss the most when Jon came for her. And she wished she could take her sister with her when she left, especially knowing what, or rather who, awaited her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone so much for your comments and kudos. Also, special thanks to lavenderandroses for her beautiful article for this piece, which you can find at https://violetcoloredglasses.tumblr.com/post/622116756866187264/she-was-a-child-of-the-north-the-eldest-daughter. 
> 
> And thanks to SaraStarbuck for betareading and watching 1980s made-for-tv movies with me.

The weeks passed slower than Sansa had expected. She missed Jon and had trouble sleeping. She longed for him most at night, though such a thing was to be expected, for the darkness had become theirs and she lay awake in her bed, willing herself to fall asleep so that she might dream of him. During the day, she was content to sit with her mother or play with Rickon or talk with Bran or Robb or Arya, with whom she had grown close, the sisters surprising no one more than themselves with their new found camaraderie. It was Arya, Sansa knew, who she would miss the most when Jon came for her. And she wished she could take her sister with her when she left, especially knowing what, or rather who, awaited her. 

The end of the third week approached, and with it the feast that would celebrate Sansa’s temporary return and honor the sacrifice she had made for her family, for her people, for the North. The lords and ladies of all of the great Northern houses were invited and they gladly accepted. The Starks were the most powerful among them, and they all sought to gain the favor of the Lord of Winterfell. 

There was much to be done before the ball, and Sansa found herself swept up in the preparations. She helped the servants arrange flowers, advised the cooks on the menu and spoke with the musicians about what songs to play for dancing. She worked with her mother to arrange the seating, to figure out how to keep feuding families apart so that the peace and merriment of the evening might go undisrupted by their squabbles, while also giving no offense over their placement in the room. The lords of the North were so prickly, her mother complained, though Sansa imagined that men everywhere were proud, cantankerous fools.

Seamstresses came to the castle, for Catelyn insisted that the ladies of the family, who had not had new dresses in quite some time, required them for so grand an event. “You are Lord of Winterfell,” she told Sansa’s father. “You cannot have your wife and daughters dressed in old wool or faded silks.” And although he knew such things were of more concern in the South than the more austere lands of the North, Ned had taken a Southern wife, and so he agreed and indulged her, the silks ordered and the women to sew them sent for. The seamstresses worked tirelessly on a gown of Tully blue for Lady Stark, of dark green for the younger girl, and a misty grey for the elder. Sansa helped where and when she could, and when they were done, Sansa admired the skill with which the gowns had been made, even if they could not compare with the enchanted finery she had grown accustomed to.

The lords and ladies began to arrive and the castle grew louder, more crowded. Her guests looked at Sansa with equal parts pity and lurid curiosity, the poor girl who had been traded for their safety and who would depart with the wolf again soon to live out the rest of her days with her captor doing only the gods knew what, serving him in ways they could only imagine, for why else would he demand a girl, and a pretty one at that. They asked her questions about her time with the wolf, where she went, what was done to her, who she saw. She kept her answers as vague as possible. She heard whispers about what the beast must do to such a Northern rose, and, when they were deep enough in their cups, they laughed about the wolf’s taste and some of the men joked that they wouldn’t mind taking a bite themselves. 

They never said such things in the hearing of her mother or father, but Sansa heard, and she found herself retreating to the quiet of Godswood to get some air or to the safety of her room, complaining of headaches or weariness from too much excitement.

“Don’t mind them,” Arya had reassured her as they walked through the wood together. “They’re all just angry that you are unavailable to marry one of their stupid sons. That’s all they care about.” She paused. “Ramsay Bolton will be coming. Father told me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“There is not much in this world that scares me, but the prospect of marrying him does. The prospect of marrying anyone, really, but especially him.”

“Have you talked to father about your reservations?”

“What good would talking do? The betrothal has been agreed upon. Father gave his word that he would give me. I don’t think he is happy about it, but you know father. He does what he must, what honor demands.”

Sansa did not know what to say, knew that there was nothing she could say, so she offered what comfort she could through the hand placed gently on her sister’s shoulder. 

“I hear stories,” Arya continued, “that there are some places in this world where a woman is given steel, a dagger, as a wedding gift.” 

“And what would you do with that?” Sansa asked.

“I’d stick him with the pointy end,” Arya said with a vicious grin.

Ramsay Bolton and his father, men with ice in their hearts and their eyes, arrived the day before the ball. Arya has retreated to her room when their arrival was announced, but Sansa had stayed with her father while he greeted the last of his guests.

“My apologies for our late arrival, Lord Stark. There were a few matters at the Dreadfort that delayed us, much to my son’s annoyance,” Lord Bolton shifted his cold, blue eyes to his bastard son. “He was, you see, quite eager to reunite his betrothed.”

“Of course,” Ned said, inclining his head slightly. “We were all disappointed that you were unable to arrive sooner. We missed your company.” 

“I do hope the wedding will be soon,” Ramsay interjected. “So that I need not be parted from Lady Arya so long again.”

“When we agreed to this union, Lord Ramsay, we set terms for a long engagement. I trust that those terms will be honored,” Ned Stark looked from the son to the father. “My daughter and your son will not be joined until after another winter passes.” Her father’s voice was frosty, his expression hard, and Sansa knew her father was no happier about the arrangement than Arya.

“You must forgive my son,” Roose Bolton said smoothly. “When one is young and in love…” he trailed off as he turned his attention to her. “And this is your elder daughter?” His eyes were appraising and icy as he took her in. “Such a shame to waste such a beauty.” 

Sansa dipped into a curtsy.“Lord Bolton. Lord Ramsay,” she greeted them both, but she could not meet their gaze, could not bear the idea of her sister being forced to live with men such as these, who she was certain knew absolutely nothing of love or kindness, whose hearts were hard and frozen as the winter soil. “I assure you that it is no waste to serve my home, my people.”

“My father only meant,” Ramsay said, “that you could have made a man a very lovely wife.” She did not like the way he looked at her, his eyes hungry, greedy, nor the way that he took her hand in his and bowed before her, planting a cold and unyielding kiss. 

“That was not to be my fate, I’m afraid,” she drew her hand back, curtsied and departed, saying a prayer to her father’s Gods, thanking them for sparing her from a man like him, and beseeching them to save her sister.

Then it was the day of the ball. Her mother fussed over her hair, braiding it in the old Northern style. Arya was subjected to the same treatment, though she bore it with considerably less patience and none of the grace than her sister did. 

Sansa was seated on the dais, at the high table in the place of honor beside her father. They dined on pottage, thick with chicken and turnips and leeks, roast capon, venison, and boar with carrots, peas, and beats on trenchers of bread. There was even a swan, glazed with honey and stuffed with mushrooms and parsnips. And for dessert, fruits and pastries and lemon cakes were passed around, though Sansa found that she could not indulge in them without a touch of longing, for she recalled Jon, the way he had licked custard from her fingers and kissed crumbs from her lips, the way his tongue had tasted, sweet from the bites of cake she had fed him and salty from her cunt. 

“Is anything unwell?” her mother, who was seated beside her, asked. 

“Yes, quite. Why do you ask?”

“You have barely eaten your lemon cake. Usually I have to stop you from devouring a full plate of them yourself.” 

Sansa took a bite and forced thoughts of Jon from her head and a smile to her lips. “I’m full from feasting,” she said. “And do not wish to ruin my appetite to dance.” 

“You look a bit flushed,” her mother continued, her eyes narrowing as she examined her intently. “Are you quite sure that you are well.”

“Positive,” Sansa said, even as more heat rose to her cheeks. “It is just a bit warm in here. With all the guests. It has been a long time since the halll was so full.” 

“Indeed.” Her mother nodded, but Lady Stark’s expression confirmed that she was not entirely convinced by her daughter’s reassurances. 

The dancing began and Harald Karstark approached the high table. “My lord, my Lady,” he said, bowing deeply to Ned and Caitlin, before turning his attention to Sansa. “Lady Sansa. Might you do me the honor of a dance.” 

“That would be lovely,” she said, rising from the table. “Thank you, Lord Harald.” She did not feel like dancing, and certainly not with Harry Karstark, who for all Robb’s assurances that he was a great hunter and a fierce fighter, had always struck her as rather dull. But he was the heir to one of her father’s most powerful bannermen and to refuse him would be too great an insult to his family and his house.

As they danced, he told her of the new helm he had commissioned, and she feigned interest as best she could. She asked about his sister and brothers and he assured her that they were well. He was not a great dancer, but did well enough at it, and Sansa wondered if Jon had ever danced. Not for the hundreds of years he had been alone, but his life before that, perhaps. Had there once been feasts and dancing and toasts and music and laughter, in that great hall, which, when she passed through it’s vast, cavernous space, was filled only with the sound of her solitary footsteps. 

If Harald noticed that she was distracted, he said nothing of it, continuing to talk to her of a filly, a field hunter he was training, and he thanked her for the dance and passed her off to his brother Torrhen, who was much finer looking and far more gallant, though his charms were wasted on her. After her dance with Torrhen, she was approached by Cley Cerwyn, a comely youth, who stuttered as he asked her to join him for the pavane, and turned a bright shade of crimson whenever she smiled in his direction. Lord Jon Umber, a giant of a man with a wild beard and a boisterous laugh, engaged her next dance, and though he did not know the steps, Sansa found him good company nonetheless.

After the dance with Lord Jon, Sansa begged off from further dancing, claiming need of some refreshment. She felt crowded, hot, and flushed, and she wished, desperately, for her Jon. 

Theon approached her, bowing slightly. She curtsied in response, though such formality felt strange between them, for they had, after all, grown up together almost as siblings. “Would you do me the honor of a dance, Lady?” he asked.

“Of course, Theon,” she replied, smiling warmly. He had not avoided her since she refused his proposal, but he had not sought her out either and she did not want to leave with this distance lingering between them. She would never feel for him as she did for Jon, but he was in her heart all the same, a brother in love if not in blood. 

“You look beautiful, Sansa,” he said as they touched hands.

“Thank you,” she replied, bowing her head demurely, the way a lady ought to. “You are very kind.”

“There is often little kindness in speaking true,” he said, “but in this case, there is. You are the most beautiful woman here.” 

“That sounds like a pretty lie,” she teased.

“Would that it were. But it’s the truth, Sansa.” They lapsed into silence for a few moments before Theon continued. “I wish you didn’t have to go.” 

“I must.” 

“Do you?” 

“Yes,” she replied. For as good as it was to see her family, to return to her old home, she yearned for Jon, for the life that she had begun to build with him. She had spoken of promises, but something more than duty bound her to return and she felt it tugging on her heart every moment she was away. 

“If you change your mind...” he trailed off. 

“Thank you, Theon.”

“Remember when we were young, and we would play knights and princesses. And Robb and Arya and I always had to save you from the castle where you were trapped by some evil wizard or horrid beast.” 

She smiled at him softly. “I remember. But this is no game, Theon. And my keeper is kind.” 

“You are still a prisoner, Sansa.” 

She could not tell him that, though she might not be able to leave the enchanted castle, she was far freer there than she was in the halls that had for so long been her home. “I am a woman. I was never not one,” she said instead, and then paused. “If you truly wish to help Theon, please try to find a way to save Arya. The trap sprung around her is far worse than my sacrifice.” 

Theon screwed up his face. “I…” he paused. “I couldn’t marry, Arya. She’s a little sister to me. I couldn’t think about her that way… the way a man thinks of a woman.” 

Sansa laughed. “Heavens, Theon. I am not asking you to wed her or to bed her.” She felt her cheeks flush, for that was no way for a lady to talk, especially not to a man. “Just watch out for her. For me.” 

“I will. I swear it, Sansa,” he said solemnly. 

The dance ended, and Sansa turned to face her next partner, Ramsay Bolton, who observed her with those cold, predatory eyes that remained dull and dead, even when his lips curled into a smile. “Lady Sansa. It is an honor.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said stiffly, remembering her courtesies and wearing them like armour. 

She did not like the way he looked at her while they danced, the way his eyes traveled greedily up and down her body. “The wolf chose when he picked which Stark bitch to steal. You are much prettier than your sister,” he whispered when they moved toward each other and he took her hand, as the steps of the basse dance required

Sansa froze. Anger filled her, though it left space for just a hint of shame. “You will not speak of me or my sister in such a way,” she said, all of the ice of the North in her voice. “Ever again.” 

He scoffed. “And what power do you have to ensure that I won’t? Arya will be my wife before the next year is out. And then it will be my right as a husband to speak of her, to her, however I wish.” He smiled at her, his expression holding only cruelty, not even an echo of the courtesy it had pretended to before. And the haughty expression that Sansa had assumed fell, because he was right. He would wed Arya, and there was little either could do to stop it. “Unless, of course, you wish to take her place? I could skin that wolf and make you a marriage cloak.” 

They broke apart, walking along either side of the line of dancers, but where they should have joined again, it was Robb, not Ramsay that took her hand. 

“Thank the gods,” Sansa breathed.

Robb’s grin was easy. “You did not seem to be enjoying your partner.”

“I don’t imagine anyone could.” She felt a shudder run through her at the way that he had looked at her, the things he had said to her. “Our sister can not marry him. Promise me, Robb. Promise me that you won’t let it happen.” 

Robb’s smile faltered. “I’ll do what I can,” he said in a voice that was not that of a young man or even a brother, but a lord.

Sansa nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and when the dance was done she made her excuses and slipped away to her rooms where she might, for the hundredth time, trace the petals of the winter rose and read the notes that Jon had left for her and hope that she might dream of dancing with him.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after the feast, Sansa woke late, the sun having long since risen. She stretched luxuriously, sighing and smiling to herself. For tonight, when the moon rose, it would hang heavy and full in the sky and Jon would come for her and she would leave with him, returning to, what had become their home, their bed, their life together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments. 
> 
> And that to SaraStarbuck for betareading and for being one of my favorite people in the world.

The day after the feast, Sansa woke late, the sun having long since risen. She stretched luxuriously, sighing and smiling to herself. For tonight, when the moon rose, it would hang heavy and full in the sky and Jon would come for her and she would leave with him, returning to, what had become their home, their bed, their life together. 

She would be sad to leave her family, the castle of her childhood, once more, but this departure was different from the first. This time she left them not for uncertain fate, beholden to and imprisoned by a stranger. No, when she left the walls of Winterfell this time, it would be to return to a man who had begun as nothing more than a strange voice in the night, but whom she had grown to see as a friend and then so much more.

For if there was one thing that this trip to Winterfell had made absolutely certain for her, it was that she was in love with Jon and wished to be at his side. 

She would miss her family. She always would. Nothing, she knew, would change that. But at least, when she left them this time, they would know that she was safe and cared for. They need not worry for her, though she would worry for them, especially Arya, whose fate was far worse than her own. She hoped that Robb and Theon would be true and would not condemn their little sister to a life married to such a man as Ramsay Bolton, even if it meant breaking an oath and dishonoring the family. No amount of honor should demand sacrificing Arya, was worth giving any daughter to such a monster. She wished she could bring her sister with her, beyond the wall, where there was no one to value pride and reputation over the lives of girls. 

There was a light rap on the door, and Sansa thought of the knock she would be hearing soon, and blushed, thinking about how much she wanted to sleep beside Jon. She craved his warmth, his touch, to dream in his arms once again, to spend her night with him as though they were truly man and wife, to know him in all the ways a woman knows her husband. 

Her mother entered, her face tight. It was an expression that Sansa remembered well from her childhood everytime Robb or Theon or Arya came back from their games bruised or bloodied, every time that she caught Bran climbing to the roofs of the castle’s towers. It was a look that meant a tongue lashing was to follow, and Sansa, who had always been a good girl, causing none of the trouble that her brothers and sister did, who spent her time sitting quietly reading or working on her sewing or embroidery, not running, noisy and reckless and wild, through the halls of Winterfell, had rarely earned it. But now her mother’s stern countenance was directed entirely on her, and she felt a small girl again. 

“Is something the matter, mother?” she said, surprised at how small the words sounded. 

“Who is Jon?” her mother’s voice was strained. 

Sansa blinked and did her best to look innocent and nonchalant, though she doubted her success. She had learned to school her features, as any lady should, but those months alone in the dark with Jon, when she had not needed to worry about what she was revealing or what impression she was making had rendered her lax, and she feared that her face had forgotten its training. “Jon? Is that one of the young lords I danced with last night? I dare say I can’t remember. There were so many.” 

“Sansa,” he mother said, using the exact tone she had the few times, usually the fault of the others, Sansa had earned a scolding as a child. “Do not play me for a fool.” Catelyn held out the bundle of letters that Sansa had brought with her from the North, the notes that she had looked through when she had grown lonely or when her longing for Jon came to be too much, that she had fallen asleep reading the night before. 

She wondered how much her face had given away, how much her mother suspected, and what her expression had confirmed. “He is the master of the white wolf, lord over the castle where I am kept.” 

“And he has seduced you?” 

“He’s shown me kindness.” 

“Has he ruined you?”

“I am still a maid.” It was the truth, though if any of the fine lords and ladies they had feasted with the night before suspected the other ways that he had come to know her, the things he had done to her body, those that she had done to him, she would be condemned as fallen and pitied for her loss of purity. She would no longer be thought worthy of a marriage, a husband, a station. She understood her mother’s concern, but such things would no longer matter when she returned with Jon to the far north. 

And she did not, could not, feel that she had been ruined by their nights together. 

“Good,” her mother said firmly. “But still, it is not fitting, not proper, for a man to write these sorts of letters. Not to a woman who is not his wife, not even his betrothed. What are his intentions?” 

Sansa sighed, for she knew not how to explain to her mother that such things mattered not where she was going. “I do not know. I believe he cares for me.” 

“Oh, my daughter,” her mother said softly, kindly. “Were that caring was enough. But that isn’t the world we live in.” 

It is, Sansa wanted to tell her, but she could not find the words without revealing too much. For how could she say that in the world that she had come to know, to live in, the world of the enchanted castle and the lands beyond the wall, in the bed she had been sharing with Jon for months, in their sighs and moans and cries, caring was more than enough. Caring was all there was. 

“He’s a good man,” Sansa insisted. “I’m completely in his power. He’s had every opportunity to do something untoward, to have his way with me. And yet he hasn’t.” 

“Men,” her mother said with a sigh. “Men are not like us. They are ruled by other passions. You cannot be certain that one night he will not defile you in any way he chooses simply because the urge comes over him.” 

“He won’t.” 

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I know him,” Sansa insisted, her cheeks beginning to burn. 

Her mother studied her shrewdly. “You have a deep affection for this man.” 

“I do. I love him.” She is not sure where the words had come from, but there they were, and there was no denying they were true. 

Her mother let out a sigh, and something in her demeanor shifted, her face softening while she looked at her daughter. “Does he feel the same?” 

“I hope so. We haven’t… we have not yet talked of such things.” 

“But he has given you signs? That he returns your affection.” Catelyn shuffled through the scraps of paper, which she still held in her hand. “His letters seem to indicate as much. Though men lie as readily with ink as they do with their tongues.” 

“I don’t believe that he is lying to me.” 

“Women in love never do.” Her mother frowned slightly to herself. “I never thought that you, of all my children, would have the best chance at happiness, especially not after that beast came to claim you, but you may be the only one who gets to marry a person of their choosing, the person they love. Robb, Arya, Bran, Rickon, none of them will have such happy fates. Robb will have to give up the dream of his Southern girl, and Arya will be forced to wed that Bolton boy. And Bran and Rickon, too, when their time comes, will be matched.

“There is a chance of happiness, of course,” her mother continued. “I didn’t love, didn’t even know, your father when I came North to marry him. And we have built together a life, a family, a love. But most women, I know, are not so fortunate. Most men are not your father. I suppose, in that way your story might not be so different from my own.” 

“Thank you, mother.” 

“I wish your life had been different, Sansa. But I cannot stop you from returning, no matter how I might yearn to. I grieved, for weeks, after you left us the first time.” 

“I grieved, as well.” 

“Had your father not stopped me, I might have gone after you. You have always been my darling girl, Sansa. It breaks my heart to lose you a second time.” She sighed. “I wish that I could just meet this man, just know that you are truly well, just see him” 

“You can’t,” Sansa cut off her mother’s musings. And then cursed herself for speaking so quickly, so curtly, because the look her mother was giving her meant that Sansa would soon confess everything. She had never been able to hold firm beneath that gaze. 

“What aren’t you telling me?” 

“I made a promise,” Sansa said softly. “He asked me not to tell.” 

“Does it not worry you, daughter, that there are things he would have you withhold from me?” 

“The fault is not his,” she said, and then wondered if she should have, or if she had already given away too much. 

“Then whose is it?” 

“I don’t know. He can’t tell me.” 

Her mother looked at her disapprovingly, and Sansa knew what she was thinking, that her daughter was a naive little fool to be so taken in by a man. But her mother didn’t know Jon, his tenderness, his struggles to tell her about the curse and all that he had suffered. And now she found herself telling his story to her mother. Not everything, just enough to rehabilitate Jon in her mind, because she could not bear for her mother to think ill of him. She did not mention the bed or the things that they had done in it, but she told her mother of the curse and that she had never once looked upon the face of her beloved. 

“How can you know that you love him if you have never seen him?” 

“I have seen his soul. That is enough for me.” 

“But so much can be concealed by the darkness.” 

“There are things a man cannot hide. I know him, mother,” she repeated, surprised by the firmness, the conviction, in her voice. “I may not have seen his face, but I have seen his heart. I know his gentleness, his kindness, his strength. I know that he is a good man.” 

“I do not like it, Sansa,” she said, her voice sad. “I love my children, but I, like all mothers, cannot keep them as close and safe as I might wish. There is some hope that my boys might remain here with me, even once they are grown, but I will lose Arya as surely as I have lost you.” 

“Must Arya marry Lord Bolton’s son?” Sansa said quietly, for perhaps, if her mother, too, spoke to her father, he might relent, might realize that sometimes the price of honor was too high for those forced to pay it. 

Her mother frowned. “I do not care for the lad, either. But your father assures me it is a necessity. The Boltons have been threatening revolt, again. It was bad enough when it was just their grumblings, but now other houses have begun to listen. Your father tells me that they can be appeased through the marriage, and I trust him. Just as I was forced to the day you were taken from me.”

“I have found a way to be happy. I know that will not end the pain you feel at my departure, but perhaps it might ease it. Just a bit.” 

“I just hope that your happiness lasts, daughter. And that he weds you, and quickly, too, if those are his intentions.” Her mother stood. “I will leave you to dress.”

“Please,” Sansa said. “Please don’t speak of what I have told you. I made a promise, not to speak of him.”

“You have my word. Though if your father asks, I will have no choice but to tell him what I know. But I will conceal what I can.” 

“Thank you.”

“Dress now,” her mother said. “It is late in the day and there is much to do before you go.” 

Sansa did as her mother suggested, and after bathing, she found the same dark grey woolen dress that she had worn south. At the sight of it her heart fluttered, for it made all the more real that Jon would soon come for her. 

After she had broken her fast, she sought out her siblings. She wanted to bid her farewell to all of them, but especially to Arya, whom she was saddest to leave. 

She found her sister in the Godswood, beneath the heart tree, a place that their father, too, often came to brood.

“I hope all those nobles leave soon after they gawk at you,” Arya said. “I can’t stand to have all of them here. The castle is so crowded and there is almost no escaping them.” 

“You seem to have managed,” Sansa replied with a small smile. 

“They don’t like this place. Even though it is within the walls of Winterfell, it is wild here. People can feel it, and it unsettles them.” 

“You would love the lands beyond the wall. Those who live there call them the true north, and think us all Southerners.” Her smile broadened as she thought of Jon and his teasing. “I have never seen so wild a land.” 

“Take me with you,” Arya said, and her voice was small, almost child-like, containing none of the fierceness that Sansa so often associated with her sister. 

“I wish I could,” she said, her voice cracking as her vision blurred. “Gods, how I wish I could.” She pulled her sister into a hug and tried to steady herself. When she pulled away, she spoke rapidly, looking into her sister’s eyes. “Listen to me, you cannot marry Ramsay Bolton. Do whatever it takes. If mother and father will not listen to reason, find another way. Run away, sleep with the blacksmith if needs be, ruin yourself, make yourself unmarriageable but don’t let yourself be bound to that man. Do not let yourself be imprisoned by oaths and vows and ceremonies.” 

Arya’s brow furrowed. “Sansa?” she said, and Sansa understood for the sister she had been, the woman who had left with the wolf, would never dream of suggesting such things. 

“Please, Arya. Just listen to me. There is so much I cannot tell you, but you deserve a better life than that you will get married to him. If nothing more, find a way to delay. I will come for you, if I can.” 

“And if you can’t?” 

“Then I know my sister, and I know that there is no one in this world more capable of saving herself.” 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The white wolf came with the rising moon, which hung heavy and round and low in the sky. He sat in the same place that he had when he came before, where he had left her last, and waited as Sansa said her goodbyes. She was dressed again in the heavy boots, the thick stockings, the fur lined cape she had worn to come south. She had repacked her satchel and was prepared to leave this home for another. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all of your comments and kudos! 
> 
> And thanks to SaraStarbuck for betareading and for not being a robot, a clone, or a robot clone. <3

The white wolf came with the rising moon, which hung heavy and round and low in the sky. He sat in the same place that he had when he came before, where he had left her last, and waited as Sansa said her goodbyes. She was dressed again in the heavy boots, the thick stockings, the fur lined cape she had worn to come south. She had repacked her satchel and was prepared to leave this home for another. 

She hugged her family goodbye, Theon and Bran, Rickon and Robb, her father. Her mother gripped her tightly, and Sansa felt her slip something small into the pocket of her cloak. And as she pulled her daughter into a hug Catelyn whispered, “A red woman, a priestess, came while you were gone and she gifted me this, a token of thanks for our hospitality, for she knew that those who worship a god of fire were often not well received by those who have the Northern cold in their blood and whose gods watch the world through eyes of wood. You only need to hold the candle and say ‘ignis.’ With this, you can look on the face of the man you love and learn what he is concealing in the dark and if he is truly worthy of your affection.” And with that Lady Stak let her daughter go.

Sansa turned to Arya, the candle oddly heavy for so small a thing, and she pulled her sister into an embrace, clinging to her and wishing that she did not have to let her sister go. “Remember what I told you,” she whispered. “Do what you must, but do not doom yourself to such a marriage.” 

The first time she had done this, she had been so determined not to cry, not to show her fear, to be as cold and fierce and unmoved as a daughter of the North ought to be. But this time, she made no such pretense, and when she felt the tears gathering, she did nothing to halt their flow, for she knew that Jon would understand and she was unashamed to cry. She longed for him to know everything that was in her heart, which now felt as if it were breaking in two. Part of it wanted to stay here, with her family, in this castle crowded with life and laughter. That piece was heavy and shattered at the thought of, once again, having to leave them, leave it all, behind. But the other half, perhaps, she realized not, the much greater part, yearned to return to Jon and that piece of her heart pounded and burned, eager to pass through the castle gate and go with him to his enchanted palace, to the bed that they had shared, and in which he had shown her so many pleasures, to the place where she had come to know what it is to love a man. Before she had left Jon, she knew that she had made her choice, had already decided that she would return to him, but that did not ease the rending of her heart, and she wondered if it would ever be whole again, or if a piece of it would always remain with her family in Winterfell. 

So, just as she had done months before, she took one last look at her family and turned to walk alone to meet the white wolf where he waited for her. Though, this time, she was not afraid. For she knew that she would be safe and cared for and loved with him.

Sansa knew that the noble lords and ladies of the North had gathered to watch the Stark girl and the white wolf, so she kept her steps steady and her head high as she approached. She would not have it said that that the daughter of Winterfell faltered as she approached the wolf that come, again, to take her away.

“You came back,” Jon said as she approached.

“Of course I did. I gave you my word, did I not?” And my heart, she thought, but she did not speak such words aloud, for though she wanted to tell him how dearly she loved him, those were words to speak to his human form, not the animal skin he was forced to wear. She would have to wait to say such things until they were alone together in the darkness of her bed. 

“Aye. You did. But words are wind, as the saying goes.” 

“Not mine,” she replied, and she felt a twisting of guilt in her gut, for though she had returned to him, she had not kept all of her promises. She had told her mother his secrets, not all of them, but she had revealed more than she ought to. More than she had told him she would. She would, eventually, admit her indiscretion to him, but that too could wait for darkness. 

“Even so,” he said, the gruff voice of the wolf gentle as the man she had come to know. “Do you want to stay, Sansa? I will not take you from this place if you wish to remain with your family.” 

“Your curse…” she began, but he interrupted her. 

“Matters not. All I desire is your happiness, Sansa.” 

“Then let us leave together. My happiness is with you,” she said firmly. “I missed you. I am so grateful that you allowed me to return to Winterfell, to my family, but I believe I missed you all the more for such a kindness.” 

“And I you,” he said. “It has been a lonely three weeks. The halls of my home are vacant as they are vast, as you know, but they felt so much emptier without you there.” 

“And I was surrounded by people, by people I love. And yet I was lonely, too, whenever I thought of you, and how much I desired to hear you, hold you, kiss you, again. I am sad to leave my family, but I could not be happy were I to be parted from you.” 

She took a step toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his soft, thick, white fur and the scent of snow and pine and the wild smell of wolves. And she felt the tears come again, because as certain as she was that she was making the right choice, that she should leave with him, build what life they could together, and as happy as she was to see him, for she had missed him terribly, it still hurt to leave her family behind. 

When she pulled away, his gray eyes were sad, and he turned his head to lick the tears from her cheeks.

“I wish that it need not be this way,” he said, when he was done. 

“Me too,” she said, and she ran her fingers along the side of his face, and he leaned into her touch. “But it grows late,” she took a breath to collect herself, “and we had best leave this place and be on our way. It is a long journey home.” 

He looked at her for one long moment, his eyes searching and then nodded and lowered himself so that she might climb onto his back. 

Sansa did not know if the nobles of the North still watched her from the castle, but if they did, they would see this great white wolf kneel before the eldest daughter of Winterfell, offering her his back, letting her ride atop him, as he turned north, into the moon, which still hung so low in the sky that it looked as though it could touch the earth, and toward the wild territories of beyond the wall, lands that held the promise of so much freedom and danger.

Once they were out of sight of the castle, Sansa leaned down against Jon’s back and neck. His fur was almost fleecy, the hairs downy and fine, the muscles hard beneath as he padded silently, taking them north. 

“How is life beyond the wall?” she said softly into his ear.

“As brutal as ever,” he said with a huff. “It remains untouched by the spring warm of these lands, and only death dwells there.” 

“What happened?” Sansa asked. “Unless you don’t wish to speak of it.” 

He sighed. “There was an attack on the Freefolk. Ice spiders. Giant things, fierce and fatal.” 

“I’ve heard the legends,” she said, recalling some of the more fearsome stories that Old Nan used to tell, the kind that had Bran and Arya squealing with delight and which kept Sansa up late at night, her covers pulled up over her head and trying to convince herself that within the walls of Winterfell she was safe from all of the monsters that populated such tales. 

“In the lands of my home, they are more than mere legends. They are real. Deadly so.” 

“You lost someone?” 

“Aye. A friend, I suppose, or as close to a friend as I have in my wolf form.  Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun. He was a giant, for all I know, actually, he may have been the last of his kind, and he was braver and more loyal than any man I knew. He traveled with a group of human Freefolk. And when their camp was attacked, he held off the beasts as best he could, but there were too many, even for him, and they overwhelmed him.” 

“I am sorry,” Sansa said, trailing her fingers through the fur between his ears, knowing what little comfort such words offered. For after all, what are words but wind, she thought, and she felt the little candle heavy in her pocket.

“It was a good death. The best kind that any man could hope for. He died defending those he cared about. I hope that when my time comes, the Gods give me such an end.” 

Sansa felt a shiver run through her. “Please don’t say such things.” 

“I am sorry, sweet girl,” he said, his voice soft. “There was a long time when I yearned for death, but no longer.” 

“No, I’m sorry. I should have been there with you. You should not have had to go through such a thing alone.”

“You could not have known what was to happen.” 

“No,” she agreed. For how could she have? And yet, was death not an ordinary danger beyond the wall. It could happen any day to any of the souls who dared to brave that place, including Jon. The horrible thought that it could have been him caused a shiver to course through her, that this strong body, which carried her so effortlessly, could be bloodied and broken and lost somewhere upon the hard crust of snow, buried only when more fell, a grave unmarked and unremembered, blending into the vast, unbroken white of that country. And she would have been at Winterfell, longing for him to return and never learning why he didn’t, believing, eventually, that he had cast her aside, perhaps that he had never cared for her at all. She shuddered, and did her best to put such thoughts from her head, for what would they accomplish other than driving her mad with worry. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow, emptied by the fear she felt, the grief of such contemplation, “I will not abandon you again.”

“You did not abandon me. I never doubted you would return.” 

“Neither did I,” she said.

“Tell me of your visit home. Surely, your time has been more pleasantly spent than my own.” 

So, long into the night, as he walked, she told him of her time at home. She described the crowded and noisy castle and how good it had been to see her family. She told him of Robb’s young love and Arya’s dreaded fate. She told him of the ball her mother and father had thrown, of the feasting and dancing. 

But there were other things she did not yet say. She did not tell him of Theon and his proposal nor of her mother, her accusations, her concern, her prying questions, her candle. Nor did she tell him that she had plumbed her feelings for him and she was now certain of their depths, for she did not yet know the words to confess such a thing. 

“I wish you could have come to the feast.” 

“I don’t think the Lord and Lady of Winterfell would take kindly to an uninvited wolf attending their party. The castle guards likely wouldn’t either.”

“Not as a wolf, but as you really are,” she said, though she smiled at his teasing. 

He sighed. “I know. And I, too, wish that such things were possible. I wish that I could have arrived with my retinue and bowed before your mother and father and kissed your hand. And during the feast, I would watch as you sat at the high table, radiant in your silks and with your hair kissed by fire and shining in the candlelight. I would be jealous of every other man who you graced with a smile or a dance, though I might not be brave enough to ask you for one.”

“And I would be waiting all night for you to grow bold,” she said dreamily. “Are you a good dancer, Jon?’ 

He let out a snort. “I can’t say that I have had many opportunities for dancing.” 

She smiled. “I suppose not. But I imagine that you must be.” And just as the sky began to lighten, Sansa drifted to sleep, her head resting on his warm, soft fur, her dreams full of him as each step he took brought them closer to home. 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa awoke as she and the wolf approached the cliff that concealed their enchanted home. The sun was low in the sky, its warm golden light reflected by the endless white of the snow. Jon kneeled down on his forelegs and allowed her to dismount, and she felt the sudden chill of losing his warmth. Just as he had done the first time he brought her North, he approached the cliff and tapped against its sheer face with his paw, and, as it did before, a door, which moments before had been indistinguishable from the rocks, swung open, revealing itself.
> 
> “Come Sansa,” he said, standing guard beside the door until she could safely enter. “The day is cool and it will grow colder as the sun dips below the horizon.”

Sansa awoke as she and the wolf approached the cliff that concealed their enchanted home. The sun was low in the sky, its warm golden light reflected by the endless white of the snow. Jon kneeled down on his forelegs and allowed her to dismount, and she felt the sudden chill of losing his warmth. Just as he had done the first time he brought her North, he approached the cliff and tapped against its sheer face with his paw, and, as it did before, a door, which moments before had been indistinguishable from the rocks, swung open, revealing itself.

“Come Sansa,” he said, standing guard beside the door until she could safely enter. “The day is cool and it will grow colder as the sun dips below the horizon.” 

She did as he requested. The entrance hall was just as she remembered, with its fine and elegant furnishings, and her spirits lifted upon seeing it. What a difference, she thought, from the first time she had come to this place, when fear and anxiety and confusion had weighed heavy upon her. “I missed this castle,” she said softly.

“And it has missed you,” he said. “ And I have as well, but the sun is near setting now, and the change is almost upon me. I must take my leave of you now.” 

“I wish that you did not have to go,” she said softly.

“As do I, sweet girl. But I will come to your chambers as soon as I might.” 

“I will be eagerly awaiting you,” she said, as she ran her fingers again through his fur and his snout nuzzled against her cheek. 

“Until then,” he said softly, and then he turned to pad silently down the hall.

The little silver bell was on the table where she had left it, and Sansa picked it up and rang it, its cheery chime familiar and reassuring. “Aiduz,” she called out. “Can you bring me to my room please?” 

The little light appeared, pulsing and dancing about and glowing brightly. He swooped around her and stopped just in front of her, dimming his light a bit so that she could bear to look at him from so close a distance. “I told you I would return,” she said, with a laugh. He bobbed as though nodding, and then darted around her again, as if to make sure that she was truly there. “Would you lead me to my room please?” Aiduz shot down the hall, seemingly propelled by his excitement, and then returned, almost sheepishly, ashamed, perhaps, for forgetting that his mistress could not keep his pace. She laughed again. “I missed you, little friend,” she said, and the light glowed in response. 

Aiduz led her through the winding, shifting halls of the castle and to the familiar doors of her room. It was unchanged since she had left it, and entering it felt like coming home. She wondered idly, for a moment whether Jon had spent his nights sleeping in her chambers, or if he had slept in his own bed, so little used all these past months. 

She rang the bell and called for a bath, for she was dirty and travel worn, and she wanted to clean and refresh herself before Jon came to her room. Her stomach tightened in anticipation. For though they had been reunited, seeing him a wolf was very different from being with him as a man. She felt a heat rise in her as she thought of his arms around her, her chest pressed against his, the warmth of his body as he curled around her, his lips, full and soft, when he kissed her. 

She began to undress, and when she was down to only her shift, she requested that Aiduz give her a bit of privacy. “Tomorrow we shall have some time together,” she promised the light, which blinked, as if in agreement to her terms and then disappeared. Once he was gone, she went through the pile of dirty garments and removed the small candle her mother had slipped into her pocket. It was red, the wick black, and she did not like the look of it, so she quickly hid it away in the drawer of her bedside table.

Sansa removed her shift and settled into the bath. It was warm and soothing, and she would have liked to stay enveloped by, soaking in, that water for hours, for she was sore from travel. But Jon would come to her soon, so she had to shorten her bath, taking only long enough to scrub her skin clean of travel and wash her hair. She then removed herself from the tub and toweled dry, finding her dressing gown and wrapping it around her. 

Her hair was still damp when the candles and fire went out and she heard his knock. “Come in,” she called, and she rushed to the door as Jon flung it open, and then his arms were around her and his lips were on hers and she was melting into him. 

“I missed you,” she said between kisses. 

“And I you,” he replied, and then his mouth was on hers again, his tongue parting her lips and hers meeting it eagerly. 

He ran his hand over her hair and down her neck and then beneath the fabric on her dressing gown, and she moaned as his fingers found her nipple, already hard and peaking beneath his touch. And as his attentions shifted to her other breast, she pressed against him, and she could feel his manhood, hard and straining against his breeches. She mewed again, and his lips trailed from her neck to her chest, and his mouth found her nipple as his hand traveled up her thigh to the hot core between her legs and she cried out as he ran a finger along her cunt. His touch was teasing and feather-light, dancing over her slit, as he ran his tongue over her nipples, her breasts tight and aching from and desiring more of his touch. 

When he slipped a finger inside of her she groaned, feverish heat spreading through her, and she rocked against his hand. 

And then he was kissing between her breasts and underneath them, and she was fumbling with the tie of her dressing gown, letting it fall open as he kissed her ribs, each one, and her stomach, his tongue flicking over her navel, and then his hands were gently pushing her legs apart, and he knelt before her, his breath hot against her cunt. And then his lips and tongue and mouth were on her, stroking and sucking, his finger sliding in and out of her, and pleasure coursing through her. Her dressing gown slipped from her shoulders and pooled on the floor around them, but she did not notice because her legs were unsteady, shaking, and she had to balance herself by placing her hands on his shoulders. And when the pleasure crested through her, she felt him smile against her slit and she cried out his name as her legs went limp and weak, and she would have tumbled to the floor, in a very undignified and unladylike way, had he not caught her in his arms. 

He got them both to their feet and she kissed him, tasting her cunt on his lips, his arms wrapping around her. “Take me to bed, Jon,” she said softly in his ear, and he cradled her in his arms, which was good, for she did not think that she could walk. And it was only when he laid her down on the bed, did she realize that she was, for the first time, truly, fully unclothed before him. 

She might have blushed at such a thought, but she was too busy pulling off his shirt between kisses, and then fumbling with the laces of his breeches, releasing his manhood, her fingers running over its velvety tip and down its shaft, her core hot and yearning for him. 

“Jon,” she whispered. “I’m ready. I want to know you in all the ways a woman can know a man.” 

“Sansa,” he said, a breath, a groan, a question. 

“Make love to me, Jon,” she said. 

“You are certain?” 

His lips found her neck as she answered, “Of nothing more so.” 

And then he was on top of her, his weight heavy and solid and comforting, and she felt herself pressed against him and wanting to be closer still. 

“This may hurt, sweet girl.” 

“I know.” Her mother had told her that a woman’s first time was often painful, that she would bleed from the loss of her purity, her blood showing her husband that she had been a maid until she knew him. But Sansa knew that she would never have a husband who would need to be reassured by a stain red upon the sheets, and she no longer thought that in being with Jon she would lose anything--not her honor or her purity. Rather, she would gain—love, companionship, and a man better than any she had dreamed of. She wanted to take him as a lover, to let him inside her body, her heart, her soul, and allow him to know her completely. 

He kissed her tenderly as he entered her, slow and gentle, and even so, the pressure of his manhood inside of her sent fiery, searing pain through her core. 

He must have felt her tense beneath him, because he froze. “Are you alright, Sansa?” he asked. “Do you wish me to stop?” 

“No,” she said, and she kissed him, long and lingering, breathing deeply, inhaling him, and allowing her body to relax around him. The pain subsided to a dull throb. “Please don’t stop, Jon.” 

He eased into her slowly, and though she felt a few more flares of pain, he was kind and gentle with her. When his lengthen was sheathed in her, he groaned, burying his head in her neck, and she ran her fingers through his curls as her body took in the fullness of him inside of her, the pleasurable pressure of him filling her so completely. 

She shifted beneath him, and he began to move inside of her, sliding his cock in and out of her, slightly, slowing. “Does this feel alright?” he asked. 

And she, not anticipating the pleasure that his motion teased from her, moaned in response. “Gods. Yes, Jon,” she said.

Her mother had told her what to expect in the marriage bed, how children were conceived, what her duty as a wife would be. But she had not told her about the warm and tingling pleasure that came from the way his manhood stroked you from the inside, from the pressure and heat that built as he moved, slow and gentle and maddening, until you were almost begging for him to thrust into you harder, faster, wanting, craving, more of him, as though you might never get enough. Before this, she had never felt particularly empty, but having Jon inside her, having his weight on top of her, his bare chest, his arms on either side of her, made her feel full in a way that she never had before. 

He kissed her once again, her tongue sliding between his lips, she entering him and he entered her, and they moaned into each others’ mouths. She had not known that you could feel at one with another person, for she could no longer be entirely sure where his body ended and where hers began in the heat and pleasure that tore through her, filled her, filled him. When he spilled his seed inside of her, she could not say for certain if the cry had come from him or her or both of them. 

His mouth met hers again, soft and sweet, and breathed her name. She answered with his. His manhood was still inside of her, softer and smaller but still connecting them. She reached up to run her fingers along his cheek, over his lips. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said, her voice breathy, dreamy. 

She felt his lips smile beneath her fingers. “I know that I’ve fallen in love with you, Sansa. I have never been so certain of anything as I am that I love you.” 

He kissed her, and as he did so, he shifted, pulling himself out of her, and as he did, she felt some of his seed trickle out of her. She would have to request moon tea in the morning, she thought, for she had heard rumors that certain herbs, when steeped together, prevented a woman from missing her cycles and growing round with child. For while one day she imagined giving Jon sons and daughters, children to fill the empty halls of this castle, now was not the time to start a family and the tea would keep her belly flat. 

He rolled off of her, wrapping an arm around her, and pulling her close. “I love you, Jon,” she said, as they lay together, naked, their arms around one another, legs tangled, foreheads pressed together. And that was how Sansa fell asleep, Jon’s seed still sticky on her thigh, and the promise of all of the future nights that they would have together filling her dreams. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos. I cannot tell you how much they all mean to me. 
> 
> Also, I have to apologize, but the next update to this story may be a bit delayed. At this point I have about 33 chapters drafted (and quite a few more to go before the story is completed!). But my dear, dear friend and betareader, Sarastarbuck, as an F-1 student in the US has had a lot to deal with since ICE announced plans to revoke visas for international students taking or teaching online classes, and has, very understandably, not been able to read over chapters for me. Again, I'm so sorry for the delay, but I will be back as soon as she is in the right headspace and has the energy to betaread. Thanks for understanding, and I am glad that I get to leave you off in a pretty satisfying place. ;)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sansa woke the next morning, the bed felt emptier and colder than it had before her journey and the few weeks she had spent at Winterfell. She had, perhaps naively, hoped that fully giving herself to Jon, that by loving him with her heart, body, and soul and him returning that affection, break the curse and free him from his wolf form, that perhaps if true love’s kiss was not enough, what they had done last night—the dull ache between her legs and the blood on the sheets a reminder of what they had shared, of what she had not lost, but given and received—would be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To start off, so,so sorry that it has taken me so long to update this fic. Between working on my dissertation, teaching online, and being in a current state of anxiety about this election, it has been incredibly difficult to find the time to work or focus on anything. 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience for this update. 
> 
> I am going to try to start updating more regularly, but I don't want to make any promises yet. We'll see what happens next week. Thanks again.

When Sansa woke the next morning, the bed felt emptier and colder than it had before her journey and the few weeks she had spent at Winterfell. She had, perhaps naively, hoped that fully giving herself to Jon, that by loving him with her heart, body, and soul and him returning that affection, break the curse and free him from his wolf form, that perhaps if true love’s kiss was not enough, what they had done last night—the dull ache between her legs and the blood on the sheets a reminder of what they had shared, of what she had not lost, but given and received—would be. 

But Jon was gone and Sansa was alone. She turned over, and her eyes lighted upon a rose and a note underneath it. During her weeks at home, she had missed the smell of his morning roses, and she lifted this one to her nose, and inhaled deeply, letting the sweet scent of the bloom fill her senses. She then picked up the note. 

_ My dearest Sansa,  _

_ I wish that I were more of a poet so that I might write you the kind of beautiful verse that you like best. But I am not. So though I say it plainly, please know that it is no less true that I love you.  _

_ All My Love,  _

_ Jon _

Sansa smiled to herself as she leaned back against the pillows, rereading his words. He did not need to be a singer, full of clever rhymes and pretty phrases to move her, for she knew how deeply he meant his words, and she felt the same sentiment curling and blooming through her. 

She rose from the bed and bathed, cleaning the blood and seed from her thighs and sipping the moon tea that was said to keep a woman’s belly flat and empty. Her mother would be scandalized, she knew, to think of her daughter drinking such a concoction, for it was a woman’s duty to bear children for her husband. But Sansa had no husband, and she had heard such things whispered about between serving girls in the castle. She was sure that Maester Luwin had provided more than one of them with a tonic to keep their womb barren, no place for some of the more handsome members of the household guard to plant their seed. 

The tea was sweet as Sansa drank it, though as she washed her stomach she imagined it, one day, large and round and heavy with Jon’s child. However, when she tried to picture the babe, she found that she could not, for she had but only one face, her own, to consider, and the most she could envision was a little girl, a copy of her mother, but with auburn curls. What their son would look like, she could not imagine, for she had never laid eyes on his father, had never seen the man she loved and to whom she had given herself. 

Sansa rose from the bath, doing her best to dispel the gloom that had settled over her. She had fallen in love with a man who was brave and gentle and strong, a man who loved her in return, and there was no one to prevent their being together. In giving her to the wolf, her father had freed her, though she had not seen it that way at the time, and now, she could love Jon without reservation, without fear of political promises or advantageous betrothals to another, no longer constrained by the courtly expectations of the world she had been born into. Few women could say that they were so lucky. Better to be with a man who she loved, but could not see, than to be saddled with a monster upon whose cruelty she would be forced to look every day. She thought again of her sister, and said a quick and quiet prayer to the Old Gods to watch over Arya and show her the same kindness that they had, miraculously, bestowed on her. 

She dressed and rang the silver bell, calling for something to break her fast. She also summoned Aiduz, and the light flitted excitedly around the room. 

“It is good to see you, too,” she said, as she took a bite of bread and cheese. “And I am sorry that our reunion yesterday was rushed.” The light spiraled around her as though to accept her apology. “What would you like to do today?” she asked the light, feeling perhaps a bit foolish. But Aiduz excitely darted about and frisked around her head until she gave up on the idea of eating, and followed him out of the doors of her room. 

Aiduz led her through the corridors, that despite all of her time in the castle, had not yet become familiar, and they shifted and twisted and wound through the space. They descended one staircase and then another, and Sansa shivered as the air cooled around her. 

She could not say how long she had walked nor how far they had traveled, when Aiduz halted. Up ahead, Sansa could make out in the small circle of light that emitted from the Will ‘o wisp, the regular carved stone floor of the castle gave way to rough and natural stone. She thought, too, that she might hear the quiet roar of some distant running water, perhaps an underground river, or the source of the hot springs she had visited before, though she could not say for certain. 

Aiduz continued forward, and she followed as best she could over the uneven natural stone, the rock slippery and slick in some places. She knew that she was moving far too slowly for the little light, though he did his best to restrain his impatience, and she thought how much better suited her siblings were for this kind of adventure. Rob and Theon would have raced each other into the darkness, heedless of any dangers that it might be concealing. Bran had always been a skilled climber, and Sansa could almost see him leaping nimbly, effortlessly, from rock to rock. And Arya--Sansa thought of her sister last because it pained her the most--Arya would have scampered over these stones, not minding if her dress became dirtied or torn, for clothes were an easy sacrifice to make in the name of such a quest. Sansa’s heart grew heavy at the thought of her siblings, her family that she had, a second time, left behind. She gathered herself and continued onward, slipping on the uneven footing.

She turned a corner in the cavern and the air was suddenly warm, almost oppressively so, sticky and humid and she knew that the source of the hot springs must be near. Aiduz stopped beside her, and up ahead, she could make out a soft, glowing blue light. “What is that?” Sansa said, her voice hushed in the large cavern, and Aiduz glowed brighter, urging her to go further. 

Sansa walked toward the light. But no, as she approached, she realized that it was not a single light at all but hundreds, or thousands, of little ones, like pricks of starlight, clinging to the walls and ceiling of the cave. “It’s magical,” she breathed, and felt silly for saying so, for in this castle, it seemed, she was surrounded by nothing but magic. Still, she could not help the tears from filling her eyes at the wonder, at the beauty of this place. “Thank you, Aiduz,” she said softly. “Thank you for sharing this with me.” And the little light glowed brighter at her words. 

She could not say how long she stayed in that cavern, gazing at the glowing lights that speckled the ceiling, but when she finally turned to leave, her hair was damp against her neck, and her dress clung to her. Her pace was not any faster leaving the cave than it had been entering it, and she wished very much that she had brought a skin with some water in it, for her mouth was quite dry. But the air quickly cooled and refreshed her, and Aiduz kept his light steady as she made her way over the uneven floor. 

“Thank you,” she said again when Aiduz led her to the door of her room, and the light bobbed up and down, glowing brightly. 

Upon entering her room, she stripped down to her shift and called for another bath to wash the sweat from her skin and refresh herself before Jon arrived. She felt her body tighten at the thought of him, the soreness between her legs becoming a dull ache of yearning, the desire to feel his touch, his fullness, within her yet again. 

And yet when the knock came and Sansa bid Jon to enter the room, she could not help but feel a bit awkward and unsure in his presence. The night before she had been so certain of what she wanted, of what to do, but she had no idea how to be a man’s mistress, what was to be expected of her, how she ought to behave, and all of the training of her youth would be little help to her now. 

Fortunately, Jon, it seemed, had no such doubts and reservations, and he rushed to her and took her into his arms and everything felt good and right again. “Jon,” she breathed, and he kissed her, murmuring her name against her lips, and pulling her closer to him. 

“How are you, sweet girl?” he said, when he finally broke their kiss. 

“I am well,” she said. “Though better now that you are here.” 

“As am I. I could think of little but you all day,” he said, and then they were kissing again, and Sansa felt herself melting into his arms. 

“But, you have not been in any pain? Last night, there was blood, and I worried for you.” 

“I am afraid that maids are expected to bleed the first time,” she said. She had heard tales that there were places in the South where a bride-groom would hang the bloodied sheet out of his chamber window to prove the purity of his wife and the consummation of their marriage. There was a particularly bawdy ballad that a handsome bard had sung about a young woman insisting that her new husband allow her to bring cherries to bed so that she could squish them beneath her bottom while he made love to her and trick him into believing her a virgin. The refrain of the song, about her crushed cherries, had drawn raucous laughter from the men in the hall and blushes and disapproval from the ladies. “But I am well, Jon. I swear to you. Better than well.” She took his hand in hers.

She told him about her adventure with Aiduz, about the perilous cavern floor she had to traverse, and how much better her siblings would have handled the expedition. But it had been worth it, she told him, as she did her best to describe the cavern the light had led her too and the magical pricks of light, so like the stars, that she had gazed upon. “It was enchanting,” she told him, smiling to herself. “Everything in this place is, I suppose, but, Jon, it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.”

He leaned down and kissed her temple. “ I have seen that place, but I hope that one day you might show it to me again,” he said, his lips still so near her skin that they brushed against it as he spoke. “For I would like to see you glow in that light.” 

“And I would very much like to see you,” she said. “In any light whatsoever, Jon.” 

“I know. And when this curse is at an end, you will. I find that I am very jealous of Aiduz, that he got to see you lit by starlight and wonder.”

“When will it end?” 

“Soon, sweet girl. I swear that soon it shall be broken. And then we will be free to live our lives however we choose.” 

“I do not care how we live, so long as we do it together.” 

“Once this is over, I shall not leave your side. I will be yours day and night,” he paused, and when he spoke again, Sansa could hear the smile in his voice. “I am afraid that you will grow rather tired of me.” 

“I don’t think that could be possible,” she laughed. “I plan to spend the entirety of the first few months just looking at you.” 

“Then I am truly terrified, for I fear that I shall be rather a disappointment.” 

“Not possible,” she said. “I love you. That alone is enough to make you the most handsome man in the world to me. It does not matter what you look like, Jon, so long as it is you. What is it that the songs say, that to look upon the face of a beloved is like rain on the dry earth, like the first flower in spring?” 

“I am sorry that you have had to wait so long for this winter to end,” he said. “But I thank you for your patience, Sansa.” 

Her lips met his and she felt herself melting into his embrace, but her mind, for just a moment, went to the words of warning and the magical candle that her mother had given her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lights that Sansa sees in the cave are from bioluminescent glowworms. They are incredibly beautiful as you can see in this video, which is also very relaxing to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlLKjKgV5So&feature=emb_logo.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa had heard enough about what to expect from the bed she would share with her lord husband, but she had never imagined that it could be like this. Her mother had told her what would be required from her, the duty that she would have to perform once she was given to some young lordling as his wife, what she would have to endure in order to conceive sons and daughters. But Jon showed her that it need not be that way between a man and a woman, that what they did in the bed that they shared could be done not from duty, but from love and pleasure, the kind of pleasure that she never imagined she could experience, had never even known to contemplate. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Hope that you are hanging in there. Had a lot of anxiety today, but I managed to channel some of it into getting this chapter posted. Hoping a bit of smut makes things a bit more bearable. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your very kind response to the story's return. It really means so much to me. And thanks to the beautiful and brilliant SaraStarbuck for beta reading.
> 
> Take care!

Sansa had heard enough about what to expect from the bed she would share with her lord husband, but she had never imagined that it could be like this. Her mother had told her what would be required from her, the duty that she would have to perform once she was given to some young lordling as his wife, what she would have to endure in order to conceive sons and daughters. But Jon showed her that it need not be that way between a man and a woman, that what they did in the bed that they shared could be done not from duty, but from love and pleasure, the kind of pleasure that she never imagined she could experience, had never even known to contemplate. 

And yet, during the course of the next month, she came to know that pleasure very well. He would come to her at night as he always had, and they would kiss, and he would undress her slowly, his hands and lips and teeth on her breasts, his fingers slipping between her legs, touching and teasing her, and then his head, his tongue trailing the slit of her cunt, swirling over her clit, until she unraveled around him. 

And then they would make love, softly and sweetly at first, his weight above her as he filled her, gently stroked her inside, kissing and murmuring their love for one another. 

Afterward, they would talk, as they always had. He would ask her about her day and tell her about his own. She would tell him stories of her family, and he would laugh. She had told him so many already, but fortunately, her siblings were wildly creative at finding different ways to get into trouble, and they had furnished her with seemingly endless tales of their exploits. “I always wished to be a family such as that,” he said, one night after she told him about Robb, Theon, and Arya bursting in the library and demanding that she provide them with an alibi, that she tell the exasperated Maester Luwin and Sir Vaylon Poole, her father’s steward, who were rushing after them that they had been with her quietly reading the whole time and certainly not anywhere in the kitchens.

“Did you do it?” he asked. 

“I tried,” she said with a fond smile. “But I am afraid that I have never been a very good liar, plus they were red faced and panting, and I believe that considerably undercut whatever tale I was attempting to spin.” 

“What had they done?” 

“Something in the kitchens. I believe there was a cake that the cook had been laboring over for my father, and it went missing under quite mysterious circumstances.” 

He had chuckled and told her that as a boy, especially once he moved here, to the far north, with Maester Aemon, that he had wished for brothers or sisters or at least other children to play with. 

“That sounds like a terribly lonely childhood,” she said, and she found herself thinking, not for the first time, about how, though she had not always appreciated it at the time, she had been lucky to grow up in a house full of love and laughter. Of all the things her life at Winterfell could be, it was never lonely. 

“I suppose it was just preparing me for what would, it seems, turn out to be a terribly lonely life.” He paused. “At least it was lonely,” he said, brushing his lips against her temple, “until you entered into it.”

“That I am glad to hear,” she said. “For, Jon, I would be your family now. If you would have me.” 

“Of course I will have you,” he said, pulling her close to him. “If you will have me.” 

“I have given myself to you in every way a woman can,” she replied softly, “and I will gladly take whatever of you that you wish to give.” 

He kissed her and she felt him harden against her and her body yearned toward him, as his hand trailed from her cheek to her neck to her breast. They were already naked from their earlier lovemaking, and she felt her nipple peak beneath his touch and her cunt grow warm. He rolled on top of her, and positioned himself between her legs, her thighs still sticky from his seed. “I love you, Sansa,” he said as he thrust inside of her. 

“And I love you,” she said, and she did. More than she ever thought possible, her body and her heart so full of him that it ached. “Jon,” she moaned, as he slid in and out of her, as he kissed her, and moved inside of her, and she had never felt so close to, so connected to, another person as she did to him. 

“I saw grass today,” Jon said. He had come to her room that night in unusually high spirits, kissing her and then pulling her into an embrace, spinning her around a bit. “I saw the green of it emerging from the snow. Do you know that means, Sansa?” 

She shook her head, and he must have felt the movement because he continued. “In all my many years in these lands, in order to get to grass, to get to anything green other than the pines, the Freefolk have to dig through the snow to find the precious plants beneath. I did no digging, which means that the snows are melting, and perhaps the winter of this place has finally begun to thaw.” 

“But what could cause such a thing to happen?”   


“I do not know,” he admitted.

“Could it be connected to the curse?” she asked, hoping that they were near to breaking it, that she might soon be able to look on the face of the man she had come to love so dearly and to know in so many other ways.

He paused for a moment, as though considering the possibility. “I suppose it might,” he said, almost cautiously. “I cannot not say for certain, cannot even be sure that there has actually been a change. But, Sansa, spring. I had not even allowed myself to dream that such a thing could ever come to pass.”

He kissed her again, and she felt his excitement flow into her, his wonder causing her to marvel at the possibility of spring returning to these lands after the centuries of winter. 

That night, for the first time, when they made love, she climbed on top of him, her cunt slick, sank down on him, rode him, slow at first, her hips rolling as she eased him in and out of her, and then hard, up and down on his cock, his hand on her breast, his fingers on her clit, until she shuddered, heat coursing through her, crumpled, against his chest, kissing him, as her pleasure crested, and then, when she had control of her limbs once more, straightening, riding him until he, his hands gripping her hips, groaned and spilled his seed inside of her. 

And afterward, he kissed her softly and curled around her. “That was…. You are… ” he said, and then he exhaled through his mouth. “You are, sweet girl, the most astounding woman I have ever met.” 

She found herself blushing deeply and cuddling closer to him. She had been thinking about what she was, but ‘astounding’ was not exactly the first term that came to mind. She did not know what had come over her, what made her so wanton and indecent. The things that she had let him do to her, the things that she had done to him, well, it was one thing to lie on her back and allow him to make love to her the way that men coupled with their wives. It was quite another for her to ride him, moaning, writhing, back arching, lowering herself atop of him, harder and faster, crying out his name. That was not how modest, virtuous ladies, the kind of woman that she had been raised to be, had always thought she was, behaved. 

And yet, when his mouth was on hers and his hand was on her breast and his manhood was inside of her, she cared nothing for virtue or honor or decency. 

Would it have been the same, she wondered, had she not traveled North? Had she married instead a man of her father’s or mother’s choosing? Would she have moaned so loudly, unabashedly, in the bed of Lord’s chamber of whatever castle or keep became her home once she was wed and left Winterfell for her husband’s holdings? Would she have climbed atop him, taken him so greedily inside of herself, engulfed his manhood with her cunt, wrung his seed from him? Or would she have lain meekly beneath him, rigid and tense, waiting for him to finish and hoping that this time a child would grow and she would not have to endure her duty until it was time to produce another heir? 

For she could not tell what made her behave the way she did with Jon. She did not know if it was the man she was with, the wild lands they had come to, the blackness of the room, or some darkness that she had inside of her that had now found its chance to escape. 

“Well, you haven’t known many women. Have you, Jon?” she said, wryly, hoping to cover her discomfort, her guilt, the immodesty of what she had done, wanting to conceal in her words any expression of her thoughts as the darkness concealed her face. 

“There are a fair number of women among the freefolk,” he said. 

“What are they like?” she said, for she had heard little about the women beyond the wall. 

“They are fierce and fearless and stubborn,” and she could hear the fondness, the smile, in his words and she wondered if he was thinking about the other woman, the one he had loved, the one he had said was also kissed by fire. Had he not used very similar words to describe her? And she wondered if he was comparing her to this other woman who had won his heart so many years ago. She shuddered at the thought, for such a comparison could only be unfavorable for her. She was not fierce or fearless. Those words better described Arya than her. Nor was she stubborn. Once, she had thought that she had inherited her father’s obstant Northern pride, his unyielding honor, but look at how easily she had yielded to him and to her own desires. 

“Many of them are fighters,” he continued. “To live in these lands, one needs to be. They call themselves ‘spearwives,’ and are as tough and ferocious as the men they fight beside. And they take what warriors they wish into their beds, but fight any man who wishes to steal them.” 

“Steal them?” Sansa asked. 

“Here, it is not like it is below the wall. If a man wishes to take a wife, he does not treat with her father, he does his best to steal her from her home and bring her to his own. And she is expected to fight him tooth and nail, sometimes quite literally. There are a number of men who quite proudly wear the scars their wives have given them.” He smiled. “A friend, a man who calls himself Tormund Giantsbane, once told me that one drunken night during a blizzard he tried to steal a beast of a woman. The way he tells it he could scarce get her out of her furs. Had to use a knife to cut them off of her, while she roared and clawed at him and did her best to bite him. When he woke, he claims, there was a grizzly pelt on the floor and rumors of a bald bear in the woods. Says that you can still catch sight of a clan of bears with red fur and blue eyes.” 

Sansa blushed. “That is quite different from the South,” she said stiffly, where daughters were expected to be docile and obedient and to acquiesce to their fathers’ wishes, not to fight like bears against their would-be husbands. As she had been. When she had been given to the wolf, she had not attempted to fight her fate, but had simply let herself be taken, obedient and compliant. She had never been taught that she had a choice to fight. 

But Arya had. Her sister was so much better suited for life beyond the wall. In fact, she would probably be more at home here among the Freefolk than living amidst the nobility of the south. Arya would never be a lady, not in the way that Sansa and her mother were, but here she could be a spearwife, a warrior, and she could fight off the likes of Ramsay Bolton or any other man who attempted to force her to wed. 

“I don’t see how you could possibly find me astounding, especially compared with women like those,” Sansa said softly. 

“What could possibly make you say that?” he asked, pulling her closer to him. 

“I’m none of the things they are. I’m not brave. Or strong.” 

“There is more than one way to be brave, to fight, sweet girl, and not all strength takes the same form. When I came for you, you met your fate, not sure what was to come, and held your head high. If that isn’t courage I don’t know what is. And when I visited you in your bedchamber that first night to plead my case, you said yes. That sort of kindness, it takes strength and spirit, Sansa, a great deal of it.” 

“I am not free. Not truly. Not in the way that they are.” 

“I am sorry that you have been imprisoned here.” 

“No,” she said softly, and she reached up to touch his face, to reassure him that though she was trapped, it was not by him. She took a deep breath. “Here I am possibly the freest I have ever been. And I am still trapped. By conventions. By the lady that I was raised to be. I don’t regret a single thing that we have done together, Jon, the ways that I have come to know you. But even that fills me with guilt.” 

“Sansa,” he said, his voice gentle, cradling her name. “You know that we need not do anything that you do not wish to.” 

“I wish to,” she said, hoping that she could make him understand. “Oh gods, how I wish to. Again and again and again. I just wish that I were free to do so without doubt, without shame.” 

“Is there anything I might do for you, Sansa? Anything to ease your guilt?” he said gently. 

Was there anything, she wondered. For if she were to wed him, if she were to see him, would it make a difference? She thought not, and she knew that she could not ask him to marry her. For if he did not wish to himself, then she would be imprisoning him just as surely as she was trapped, and she cared too deeply for him to do such a thing. So she merely shook her head. “Just continue to love me, Jon.” 

“There was never a doubt, sweet girl, that I would,” he said. And that night, when she fell asleep in his arms, she felt, perhaps, a bit freer than she had the day before. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following nights, when they made love, it was gentle, soft, sweet, and Sansa was almost certain that Jon was taking extra care to be tender with her, to do his best to dispel the doubts and the guilt that she had confessed to him. And slowly, very slowly, she began to let go of some of her shame at breaching the conventions of her home, for she was far away from that place, removed from the life she had always imagined she would live. She was free of it, free to love Jon as fully and wildly as she chose, and so she let herself. When he ran his fingers over her breasts and the slit between her legs, when he entered her, and they groaned and gasped at the pleasure of it, she let herself slide into it. And, when, a few nights later, she rode him again, unraveling at the feel of his cock inside her, his hands upon her, and she writhed and moaned atop him, she did not let herself think about what her mother or the other ladies at court would say. They mattered not. In that moment, she and Jon were the only two people in the world and she was free to love, to lust for, to desire him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Feel like a weight has been lifted, and I can think of no better way to celebrate (well except for the few of glasses of champagne and scrolling through twitter while laugh-crying) than posting a new chapter. :) 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your kudos and comments. And thanks to SaraStarbuck for all of her emotional support as we refreshed election results all week and for being such a wonderful friend and beta-reader.

The following nights, when they made love, it was gentle, soft, sweet, and Sansa was almost certain that Jon was taking extra care to be tender with her, to do his best to dispel the doubts and the guilt that she had confessed to him. And slowly, very slowly, she began to let go of some of her shame at breaching the conventions of her home, for she was far away from that place, removed from the life she had always imagined she would live. She was free of it, free to love Jon as fully and wildly as she chose, and so she let herself. When he ran his fingers over her breasts and the slit between her legs, when he entered her, and they groaned and gasped at the pleasure of it, she let herself slide into it. And, when, a few nights later, she rode him again, unraveling at the feel of his cock inside her, his hands upon her, and she writhed and moaned atop him, she did not let herself think about what her mother or the other ladies at court would say. They mattered not. In that moment, she and Jon were the only two people in the world and she was free to love, to lust for, to desire him. 

Afterward, she still felt the sharp pang of guilt, the prickling heat of shame, but Jon pulled her closer to him and told her that he loved her, and she did her best to forgive, instead of reproaching, herself. Jon it seemed cared not about how wanton she became, did not think less of her for her uncontrolled and uncontrollable concupiscence. 

She had asked him to continue to love her, and he seemed determined to do so, with every breath and touch, with every kiss and stroke. He told her that he loved her, every night, said the words, but he also showed her as best he could in the darkness of the bed that they shared. 

And she loved him for it.

With every part of her, she loved his kindness, his attentiveness, his concern for her. She loved him in a way that she had never dreamed she would be allowed to love a man, fierce and burning and completely. Each morning when she woke, she thanked her father’s gods, who, it seemed, had been watching over her when they had delivered her to such a man, had delivered him to her. 

If only she could see him, and she asked the gods who had already shown her so much mercy for just a little more. She craved just a glimpse of him. As they grew closer, as her love for him deepened and she came to better know his heart, his body, his soul, she found more than ever that she wanted, too, to know his face. She grew increasingly frustrated by the absurdity of the situation in which she found herself. To love someone so fully, so deeply, and to not know how he looked when he laughed or smiled or told her that he loved her, to not be able to gaze into his eyes while he was inside of her, to be denied that connection when she felt connected to him in so many other ways, some days it was almost too much to bear. Perhaps, she thought, if she only knew his face, she would be free to love him truly without guilt or shame.

Those days, she returned to the portrait gallery, haunting its halls, attempting to discern the countenance of her lover among the many that looked down at her, impassive and refusing to reveal the secret of his identity. Some days she was certain that the face of one dark haired man must belong to him, while on others she was rather sure that it was another. The youth next to the woman holding winter roses was a favorite of hers, and she returned to it again and again, growing increasingly confident that it was him. There was something about the pout of the mouth, the dark curls, that reminded her of Jon, but he seemed so young and she could never truly imagine him as the man who shared her bed. 

She inevitably left that room feeling vexed, for she knew that even if she had found his portrait, had known truly and certainly that it was him, it was one thing to look upon oils and canvas and quite another to look upon the face of a living man, his arms around her, the weight of his body pressing against her, his manhood filling her. No portrait could replicate that. 

Her mother’s words echoed through her, warnings of deception, of what might be kept hidden in the dark, and though she trusted him, believed him, she could not escape the momentary doubts that such thoughts conjured within her. She did her best to dispel them, recalling his kindness, his tenderness, his courtesy, his attention, reminding herself that he was a good man and that he loved her. But in his absence, sometimes, uncertainty lingered and festered, and only when he returned to her could she fully quell it, put it out of her mind, if only for the night, both knowing and fearing that it would return when he left her side. 

During those nights, Sansa’s spirits were inevitably lifted, for his mood was buoyant when he came to her rooms, full of news of the outside. The air warmer, he told her--he was nearly certain of it now--and he had seen more grass, young and tender stalks, pushing its way through the snow, waking, finally, after centuries of sleeping beneath the white blanket that had smothered the land. The Freefolk, too, he told her, had registered the change, and commented on how when the wind blew, the cold was not nearly as fierce, that the ice that had stilled the rivers had begun to crack, that the waters had begun to flow again. 

“But how is such a thing possible?” Sansa said. “Why now?”

“It is because of you,” Jon replied. “These lands, Sansa, were under a curse that it appears you have broken.” 

“Why me?” 

“Because you are a Stark.” 

“But what has that to do with anything?” 

“It was a Stark who cursed this place.” 

“No,” she said. “Surely a Stark would not do such a thing.” 

“Do you remember the legends? Of my mother’s brother. You have heard the stories of him that told of the magicks he used to destroy my father’s family. It seems that he came north, to these lands, where I, one of the last of the Targaryens dwelled, and cursed them with eternal winter. He would not kill his sister’s son, but nor could he allow me to go unpunished. After all, I was at least half a dragon, and my mother’s murderer, and for those crimes I should pay.” 

“But you were just a child,” Sansa reached out to take his hand in hers. 

“The Targaryens are not the only family to have its members fall to madness, Sansa,” he said softly, gently squeezing her hand. “He had given himself over to wild magick of these lands to gain the power to punish the men who had stolen his sister and killed his father and brother when they rebelled. In the end, I don’t know if it was the magick or the grief that drove him to curse these lands, but he did.” 

“And now the land is free of it,” she said. 

“Aye. Once you returned, so did the spring. I don’t know exactly what has caused it.” 

“It was the love between us,” Sansa said, suddenly certain, for was that not how curses were resolved in tales? “With our union, did we not right some of the wrongs of the past? Your father took your mother from her maiden’s bed, or at least, that is what the Starks believed. In order to break the curse, a Targaryen had to win the love of another Daughter of Winterfell, love that, not stolen, was freely given.” 

“It sounds like something out of a story,” he said and she could hear the smile in his voice. 

“A good one. And one I would very much like to read,” she said, and kissed him. 

After they had made love, she lay with her head on his chest. “Would that love had been enough to break the curse upon you,” she said softly. 

“I wish that it were as simple as that, for loving you is the easiest thing in the world.” 

As the weeks passed, his mood rose with the temperature, and Sansa’s heart was full with the knowledge that this man, who had spent his life so long cold with gloom, had found some well-deserved happiness. She hoped that she in some small part, at least, contributed to it. 

One night, after Jon had knocked and she had bid him enter, he rushed to her and pressed the slightly crushed bundle of flowers into her hands. A green, fresh scent, with just a hint of floral perfume engulfed her, and she ran her fingers over the leaves and stems to the delicate petals that formed a bell-shaped bloom. 

“Snowdrops,” she said, her voice soft in the darkness. 

“You know them.”

“Of course, they are always the first flowers of the spring, a sign that we have survived and an omen of the warmth and life that is to come.” 

“Do you think they could mean that the winter of this place has finally come to an end? That spring is here? Have we truly done it,” he asked, and Sansa’s heart broke for him, for the hope in his voice that betrayed how the long centuries of darkness and cold had caused him to despair. But something it seemed, had changed, and now green broke up the endless white and snowdrops had poked their heads from the ground where they had slept. 

That night, as they kissed, lying on their sides and facing each other on the bed, he wrapped his arm around her, his hand sliding down her back, his fingers lightly trailing along her cunt. She moaned into his mouth, and she arched her back to meet his touch, as she felt him smile against her lips, his fingers continuing to tease her until the heat between her legs pulsed through her, radiating through her, consuming her, until she was whimpering “please,” begging him to satiate the hot hunger roiling through her, his finger slid inside of her and she pressed her hips to meet and his head dipped down to her breast, taking her nipple into his mouth, as she mewled from the pleasure, from the release. She ran her fingers down his chest, over his scars, took his cock, hard, into her hand. 

“You need not always be so gentle with me, Jon,” she said, her voice husky and low and sensual. 

“I just thought,” he replied, “that it was what you wanted. That it might make things easier.” 

“Tonight, I want to do what you wish, Jon. What is it that you want? How do you wish to have me?”

He swallowed, loudly. “I want to take you from behind,” he said, his voice thick, his breath and his words hot against her neck. And she blushed, for she knew that was how animals copulated, but she nodded, and though he could not see it in the darkness, he felt it, so instead of rolling on top her, as he usually did, he helped her get to her hands and knees and he knelt behind her, and then he slowly slid his cock into her, and she cried out, certain that she had never felt him so deep or so full inside of her. He moved inside of her, gentle and so slow that she might scream from the wanting of him, from the frustration each time he pulled away, and left her feeling empty, from the pleasure, the ache, when he pushed back inside of her. As his speed, his force, increased, he kept one hand on her hip, but the other brushed against her clit, and she felt herself begin to melt around him, and she called out his name, and he answered her with hers, and fucked her until they were both howling like wolves. 

Later she lay with her head on his chest, and he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Are you alright, sweet girl?” he asked softly. 

She smiled up at him, and she wished that he could see her face, that she could see his, because she did not know that she had the language to communicate what she was feeling. Did some small part of her feel shame at what they had just done, the noises she had made, the hunger she felt for him--which she did not believe would ever be fully satisfied--the way that she craved him inside of her, wanted him as deep and as full and as hard as possible? Yes, and she had come to realize that she might never fully escape the consequences of her schooling, the lessons that she had learned about what it meant to be a woman, a lady, proper and good. But each day, she found, she had been able to let a little more of that go, so tonight, her cheeks were hot, but she was surprised to find that it was a flush of passion rather than a burning shame. What they had done together, if it had not felt right, definitely not proper, it had felt good, and she was determined to give herself permission to enjoy it. 

“Yes, Jon,” she said. “I’m quite alright. Better than alright.” She reached up and kissed him, long and lingering, and he pulled her closer to him. “I did not know that it could be like this between a man and a woman,” she said, softly. 

“Like what?” 

“Like this. The closeness. I was taught a woman’s duty, but not what it was to love as a woman. I learned coupling was to produce heirs, not,” she paused, her face burning, “pleasure.” 

She felt his body stiffen, go rigid, only for a moment before relaxing again around her. “Sansa,” he said gently. “Were you hoping for us to make a child?” 

“Now? No, Jon, not now.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief. “I have been taking, uh, precautions. There are herbs a man might eat to prevent his seed from taking root.” 

She smiled against him. “I, too, have taken moontea.” 

“I want you to know, Sansa. That someday, I would like to have children with you. It would be good to fill these lonely halls with laughter.” 

“We would need an entire brood in order to fill these halls.”

He kissed her deeply and then his mouth smiled against hers. “I think that could be arranged,” he said, and she felt his manhood harden against her. 

“I want to bear you sons. And daughters, too,” she said. Girls who would grow up as wild as the lands of their north home, free as the folk who dwelled in them, who would not have to worry about being sold or traded or given away. “I want us to build a family together.” 

And he kissed her again, long and full, and when they made love again, soft and tender, and he breathed ‘I love you’ into her hair, kissed it against her neck, moaned into her mouth, she believed him and did not feel ashamed. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning, when she awoke, and rang the silver bell and requested her moontea, she could not help but think of Jon, and what he had said the previous night about their children filling these halls with laughter. But try as she might, she could not see them, picture what their eyes and smiles might look like beneath dark or auburn curls. Their faces remained blank and empty, her mind unable to fill them in with features. It was haunting and she banished such children from her mind, only to have it fill with the image of a candle, red-waxed and black wicked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and kudos. At some point, this piece surpassed 1,000 kudos and I honestly can't express how much that means to me. Thank you all. 
> 
> And a special thanks to Sarastarbuck, who I cannot wait to start watching cheesy Christmas movies with, for beta reading. <3

The next morning, when she awoke, and rang the silver bell and requested her moontea, she could not help but think of Jon, and what he had said the previous night about their children filling these halls with laughter. But try as she might, she could not see them, picture what their eyes and smiles might look like beneath dark or auburn curls. Their faces remained blank and empty, her mind unable to fill them in with features. It was haunting and she banished such children from her mind, only to have it fill with the image of a candle, red-waxed and black wicked. 

She bathed and dressed and summoned Aiduz to take her to the library, for she hoped that reading might prove a needed distraction from her thoughts. When the light appeared, it seemed to sense, to mirror, her mood, as it too moved restlessly around her. “Not you too,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go for a walk. Would you guide me to the library?” The little light blinked and slipped out her door. 

But when she got to the library, Sansa found she could not focus on the titles of the books long enough to select one to read, her mind wandering to children and candles. There were too many to choose from and she spent more time than she thought she should drifting through the rows of books, listlessly looking at them, running her fingers over the bindings but coming no closer to a decision. It was silly, she knew, easy enough just to pick one, but she just could not bring herself to do so. 

Aiduz buzzed around her, as though picking up on her distracted irritation. Finally, she noticed a Valyrian tale, one she had not yet devoured. And, remembering how much she had enjoyed the story of lovely Kios and mighty Morghon, she selected it and brought it back to her room and settled down to read. 

But this story brought her no joy and little comfort. It told of the first woman, Jaesirudy, she of all gifts, crafted from the clay of the earth and the water of the sea. The gods bestowed their favors upon her, beauty and grace and the ability to ignite the desire of man, the skill to weave and sew and craft fine robes, and the cunning to beguile, to spin lies and to deceive. For earth-born Jaesirudy was not meant as a gift, but a punishment for the world she had been created from. She was wide-ruling Darys’s revenge on the wily Perzys, who stole flames from the gods and gifted it to men, making them too powerful. Darys feared that one day men would light their flames and rise against him. 

So golden Darys brought white-armed Jaesirudy to fire-stealer Perzys’s brother, mindless Mittys, who looked upon her and desired her greatly. In his love for bright-eyed Jaesirudy, he forgot the good advice of his wise brother to never accept the gifts of the gods and he married her and brought her to his bed. As a wedding present, dragon-born Darys, most powerful of the gods, gave the bride and groom an urn, ornate and well crafted, and told them never to open it. 

Rash Mittys delighted in lovely Jaesirudy, in her ability to craft and the desires that he satisfied between her legs, but she could not be so easily satisfied, for her mind returned again and again to the urn and what might possibly be inside, for she knew the wealth of the gods, and she wondered what they might hide within such a vessel. So one night, while her husband slept, wicked Jaesirudy resolved to peak inside the urn so that its treasure might reveal itself. 

Slowly, carefully, she removed the lid, and from the urn flew forth all of the evils of the world. There was a black pall of war, a pale misema of disease, the stench of rot and death. It was followed by the perfumed cloud of vice, which at first smelled sweet, but as she dwelled in it, made her head ache and her stomach turn, and the oppressive fog of toil, the need to work day in and day out for sustenance. Such were the favors that she of all gifts bestowed upon the world.

Clay-crafted Jaesirudy attempted to close the lid, to trap the ills that she had unwittingly released, but she was too late, and they dispersed over the land to curse all men who dwelled there. Thus, she restored the power of the gods to Darys, for they were not of the earth and were therefore not subject to the curse that the first woman brought to her race. 

When all evil had escaped, Jaesirudy noticed, trapped within the urn, one last cloud, smaller than the rest, wispy and diaphanous, silvery and glowing with a faint light. So, earth-born Jaesirudy released this, her last gift, and hope flew forth. 

Sansa closed the book, finding herself growing annoyed at the story. It seemed unfair to curse and blame Jaesirudy for the fate that had befallen the world. Any fool could see that it was Darys and the rest of the gods who were culpable for the sufferings of men, for did they not wish this woman to yield to temptation, to falter and fail a test that it had never been intended she pass? If anything, the guilt of the gods was far greater than that of the mortal woman they had created to fail. The injustice chafed at her. 

She was still feeling slightly irritable when Jon came to her room, though his arms around her and his lips on hers, his manhood inside of her, did something to soothe the parts of her that still railed against the injury done to Jaesirudy. But Jon, too, did not seem quite himself, and he was distracted in a way that he not often was.

“Is all well in the world?” she asked after they had made love. 

“Aye. And each day it grows better, warmer. The Freefolk joke that their heavy furs grow stifling in the heat.” 

“And your fur coat?” 

“It always feels heavy, though not from the warmth of spring, sweet girl.” 

“I suppose you shall start to shed,” she said with a small smile, and he chuckled in response. 

“I suppose I shall.” He paused for a second. “Sansa, there is something that I must say to you, something I must ask you,” he continued, his voice faltering. 

“Yes, Jon?” she asked, made nervous by his apparent nerves. 

“Yesterday, we spoke of children,” he said, his voice catching. “And I wish to have children with you, a family with you, more than anything. I would continue to endure this curse if I thought it could bring us happiness. I will not condemn my children to the same fate that my father condemned me to. I will not father bastards.” 

“I understand.” She nodded in the darkness, uncertain of what more to say, for she realized that she cared not if her children with him were true or bastard born, so long as they were his and hers. But if he were not of the same mind, she would not bring any more grief into his life, which had already been so full of sorrow, by bearing his bastards. They could find enough happiness between the two of them, without the children they both desired. 

“I am not sure that you do, though the fault is mine. Afraid I have not made myself terribly clear. What I mean to say, Sansa, is that someday I wish to wed you, if you will have me.” 

She smiled broadly. “Don’t be a fool, Jon. Of course, I will have you,” she laughed and kissed him. Happiness, sparkling and effervescent, floated through her. She had resigned herself to being his mistress, to be content as his lover, for it had seemed impossible that she would ever be his wife. It had been enough simply to be with him that she had tried not to let herself bother with the distinction of being his paramour or her his lady-wife. So long as she was his, it was enough. They had not spoken of marriage, and such a thing had not seemed possible. But now, it appeared it was, and the thought of it filled her with such joy that she could not help but laugh and kiss him again and observe that according to the Freefolk, were they not already wed. “You did, after all, steal me from my home.” 

“Everything that I have taken from you,” he replied, “was freely given.” 

“And I would give it all again, a thousand times,” she said, and she crawled into his lap, feeling him harden beneath her. 

“I would wed you now, before gods and men, if I could,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. 

“I wish it, too,” she said. 

“Unfortunately, what we wish and what can be are two very different things, sweet girl. I cannot wed properly until this curse is ended.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “Then we shall just need patience.” 

“It shan't be too much longer now, if all goes well. Still, it seems like an eternity that I wish not to wait. Not after I have waited so long already for you.” 

She paused, for a moment, and then decided to be as bold with this as she had been the past months with everything else. “Perhaps we need not be wed before gods and men,” she said softly. “Perhaps it might be enough just between the two of us?”

“What do you mean?” he said. 

“In the north, there is a custom among the small folk. Some of them, you see, live far from weirwood trees or septs or the other places where the gods are said to dwell and they may not wish to wait to wed.” She felt a slight blush creep into her cheeks, for it was known well enough why men and women might be in a rush to marry. “In such cases, they become handfast, binding themselves together. For many, it is quite the same as being wed.” 

“I am already bound to you, Sansa, in every way a man can be to a woman. Let us say the words, make the promise, to each other, and hope that we are overheard and blessed by the gods of these lands. If we are not, so be it. It is enough for things to be between just you and I.” 

“It is more than enough,” she said, for while she lived in this castle, isolated and alone, all had disappeared except for him. What need had she for the rest of the world to acknowledge their union when the world she had come to know, the one she had dwelled in for all of these months, consisted of only the two of them? 

She pulled the tie from her dressing gown, where it had been discarded on the floor during their earlier love making, and she kneeled in front of him. He must have, somehow, sensed her movements, for he mirrored them. She felt exposed, like this naked and on her knees before him, but it also felt right when she took his hand in hers. She wrapped the silk cord around her wrist, and then over and under their clasped hands. He then took the end and did the same, wrapping it around his wrist and then their hands. They took turns, their breath the only sound in the room, until Jon used his free hand to secure its end in a knot. 

“Is it done?” he asked into the darkness. 

“There are words that should be said,” she replied. She hesitated but when she spoke again, her voice was clear and firm and sure. “I, Sansa Stark, willingly bind myself to you, Jon Targaryen, by these words, by this cord, by my love. As this knot ties us together, so does the promise that I am yours and you are mine.” 

Jon cleared his throat, but when he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “I, Jon Targaryen, willingly bind myself to you, Sansa Stark, by these words, by this cord, by my love. As this knot ties us together, so does the promise that I am yours and you are mine.” 

They were silent for a moment, though Sansa’s heart was pounding so loudly, she doubted that she would have been able to hear the roar of a dragon over the sound it was making. She could not find the words to speak, to communicate what was in her heart. 

Jon exhaled in what she knew was a grin. “May I kiss you, wife?”

She smiled, too, and it was like a damn had been broken and joy rushed through her, urgent and wild as a river. She reached up and touched his cheek, and he leaned into it, his fingers brushing against hers. “You may, husband,” she said. And she could not help the laughter that bubbled through her and that stopped only with his kiss. 

His lips were light and sweet against hers, and though they had already made love that night, she felt her body respond with a growing hunger. She deepened the kiss, pressing herself against him, and his hand moved from her cheek to her hair and then down to her breast, and her nipple hardened in response, and she let out a quiet moan into his mouth. She could already feel the dull ache between her legs, the need for his finger, his tongue, his manhood inside of her. 

Not breaking the kiss, he eased her down onto the bed, using his free hand to stroke her breasts, her stomach, her sex. She writhed beneath him, arching her hips toward him, feeling the hardness of his manhood as it brushed against her thigh. “Jon,” she breathed, a request, a prayer.

“Sansa, my sweet girl,” he replied, as he eased himself inside of her, filling her. “I am yours and you are mine,” he said. 

And she repeated their vow back to him as he moved inside of her. “I am yours and you are mine,” their bodies, their hearts, their souls, united through their bound hands, through every point of connection as he buried himself deeper inside her. 

He made love to her, gentle and soft, the lightness of his touch belying the emotions that roiled through them. They had been intimate countless times since her return, even earlier that night. But this time, Sansa knew, was different, for this was the first time that they did so not just as lovers, but as husband and wife, and as he cradled her beneath him, kissed her, slid in and out of her, their hands still bound and arms stretched above them, as she felt his weight above her and heard him breathe her name, she knew that each kiss, each thrust, each breath was a declaration. 

He began to move harder and faster, and her hips met him, and the cord dug into her hand and wrist, feeling like she could never have him deep enough inside her. And when he spilled his seed, calling out her name, then kissing her, murmuring her name, telling her he loved her, her heart felt so full that she nearly wept for the joy of it. 

They both seemed reluctant to untie their hands, but eventually they did. She kissed him lightly one last time before they fell asleep, their bodies and hearts entwined, and she wished she could see, if only for just a moment, her husband’s face. 


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to update this story! I've been in the working through the second chapter of my dissertation, and not able to think about writing anything but that. But at this point my chapter is drafted, and I decided to take a bit of time for me this afternoon. Thank you all so much for your patience. I am going to have the next chapter up Friday or Saturday. 
> 
> Thanks also to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading and for starting a Twilight Book Club with me this semester.

Sansa awoke with a start, panting and her body slick with sweat. It was only a dream, a nightmare, she reassured herself, the same one she had many times the past few weeks. Just a dream. But try as she might, she could not put its images from her mind. There had been a man with Jon’s voice and no face, who had hovered over her, telling her that she was trapped, that she was his, and that he would never let her go. She had tried to run, but had gotten lost in the labyrinthine halls of the castle, had gone in circles, unable to find an escape, the man always right behind her or managing to appear before her, taunting her, laughing at her from his smooth mouthless face. 

“Sansa,” Jon said sleepily, pulling her closer to him. “Are you alright, sweet girl?”

“Just a bad dream,” she said, reaching up to run her fingers over his cheek, his lips, attempting to reassure, to calm herself. She was being foolish, she knew. How many times had she pressed her own against those lips, felt them on her neck, her breasts, her nipples, her cunt? How many times had her nose brushed against his while they kissed, had touched when they had lain so close to each other while they spoke. He had a face, she knew this even if she had never seen it, but long after he had fallen back to sleep, his rhythmic breathing against her, she remained awake, haunted by the horrific visions of her dream. 

When Sansa finally woke, she could tell from the gnawing in her stomach that it was late into the morning. Still, she did not wish to rise, her head heavy, so she rolled over and closed her eyes. 

She wished she could get just one good night’s sleep, one night where she didn’t wake up panicked and sweating, the blankets tangled around her and her heart pounding. Jon had done his best to soothe her, to reassure her, but for all his love, he could not protect her from the nightmares that had been hounding her dreams for weeks.

And the worst of it was that she knew she should be blissfully happy. She had grown up certain that, if she were ever to wed at all, no one would ever marry her for love. She would be given to forge a new alliance or secure an old one, married off for her family’s advantage, not her own. As her sister was, the thought of Arya making her all the more miserable. 

But, she and Jon were married now, or as close enough that it made no difference, and they had wed for love, not politics or treaties or power. Here, in these wild lands of the true North, she had been blessed with the one thing she never thought she would, a husband who loved her, a man who honored and respected her, who was good and gentle and true. He was every bit the hero, so like the kings and knights of old, the legends she had swooned over as a girl. He was everything that she could have wished for, more, in fact, for she had never dared let herself wish for something that had always seemed a folly, a hopeless impossibility that she had not let herself entertain. 

He loved her and she loved him. 

So why, when she should be at her happiest, had her nightmares begun? 

She knew that she ought to rise from the bed, but she could not force herself to abandon its comfort for a day alone except for the company of Aiduz and the thoughts that she seemed unable to ever fully escape. She wished Jon was with her. She wanted nothing more but to wake with him beside her, for them to spend the day together, just wished to look upon him, reassure herself, but see him in the soft light of the candles or the brightness of the sun. It was such a simple thing, to be able to see one’s beloved, and yet it had been denied to them. They who loved so fully and so truly and yet were condemned to darkness nonetheless. 

She opened the drawer of her bedside table to retrieve the notes that Jon had left for her, for they were sweet and her mood was sour. As she retrieved them, her fingers brushed against the candle that her mother had given her. She paused for a moment before taking it from the drawer. 

She had not looked upon it since shoving it in the draw the first night of her return. The candle sneaked its way into her mind from time to time, but she had not retrieved it, a part of her too frightened of the promise, the temptation it held. It seemed quite ordinary, though Sansa found the wax, which was the color of blood and the wick, black as death, unsettling. Still, it was just a candle, she reassured herself, if a magical one. Such a simple thing. 

And yet, she had not told Jon about it. Nor had she confessed the conversation she’d had with her mother, the fact that she had spilled his secrets. Not all of them, of course, but more than he had wished, more than she had promised to withhold, but that her mother had somehow managed to cajole from her nonetheless.

There had been opportunities to tell him--quite a few and more than she cared to consider. But she had resisted the desire to tell all as they had traveled back North together, reasoning that it would be better to confess her betrayal to his human form, rather than his animal, that she needed to tell the man, not the wolf. And then after that? That first night they had made love, spoken it. She had confessed everything that was in her soul, but had held back that, afraid to break the happiness that they had found--which felt too often like delicate blown glass, so prized at Winterfell, beautiful but fragile, and she was determined not to see it shattered, not once she had finally found it. So she had not told him of her betrayal, not that night or the one after or the one after that, for he was so happy about the thawing of the land, that she wished not to dampen his spirits, to let him enjoy the spring as she basked in the warmth of his love, and with each day and night that passed, she felt more resistant to telling him what she had said to her mother, what she had taken from her, and she found them easier to hide away within her mind and the draw of her bedside table. 

But now she held the candle in her hand, a reminder of not only the first betrayal, when she had broken her promise and whispered his secrets to her mother, but also of the second, her failure to tell him that she had done so. 

It was foolish. He would forgive her, as he had before. She was certain of that. For that was the kind of man Jon was. But such thoughts only worked to increase both her guilt and her fear of losing him, her dread that if she were to tell him what she had done, he might love her less, which was something she was not certain she could endure. 

Perhaps, she thought, that was the explanation for the nightmares. Perhaps her mind could not allow her to be well and truly happy until she had revealed to Jon all that was in it and so it was conjuring these fearsome visions, preventing her from finding complete happiness until she fully faced and revealed her failings. 

“I will tell him tonight,” she said, reassuring herself and whatever invisible witnesses of her shame, she feared, the castle held in judgement over her. “I will,” but despite the firmness of her voice, she could not help but doubt her resolve as she slipped the candle back into the draw, shutting it firmly, and forbidding herself to think of it any further. 

When Jon came to her that night, he took her in his arms and spun her around. “The lake,” he said. “The ice has cracked. They are still cold as death, but this is the first time since my boyhood that its waters have not been frozen and trapped. And today I heard a bird, Sansa. Not a crow or a raven, but a sparrow, best as I could tell from its chirping. It has been so long I had near forgotten the sound.” 

“That’s wonderful, Jon,” she said, smiling and laughing as he spun her around again. 

“You truly have brought the spring,” he said, pulling her closer and kissing her deeply, and she felt herself melt into him. “Sansa,” he said, breathing her name, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, meeting his lips for another kiss. 

“I love you,” she whispered, as he kissed her neck, breathed in the scent of her hair. 

“And I you,” he said into her skin. 

“Always?” she asked. 

There must have been something in the tone of her voice that gave him pause, for he straightened and pressed his forehead against hers. Had she been able to see his eyes, she knew that they would be looking deeply into hers. “Until I die, and even after that. I will never stop loving you, Sansa.” He paused. “But what troubles you that you need to ask?” 

Now was the time to tell him, she knew. But with her arms around his neck and his around her waist, her chest pressed against him, and his declaration still lingering in the air, she could not force herself to. She would tell him tomorrow. “Nothing” she said, and then she kissed him again, hard and desperate and determined to avoid the feeling of guilt, to avoid feeling anything but him. 

He kissed her back, his arms tightening around her, and she felt his manhood hardening. She broke the kiss just long enough to pull off his shirt and then they were kissing again, and she was running her hands down his chest, to the laces of his breeches, fumbling a bit, but managing to get them untied, pushing his trousers down, and he stepped out of them, and then she was kissing his neck and down his chest, muscular and smooth except for the scars, so many scars, and then she was kneeling on the floor in front of him, taking him into her mouth, her tongue curling around the shaft and him groaning her name.

And then his hands were on her shoulders, gently pulling her to her feet, and he was untying her dressing gown which fell from her shoulders, his hand moving from her breasts, to her slit, slick and hungry for him. He slid a finger inside of her and she moaned into his mouth, crumpling against him, mewling as he breathed out her name. 

“I want you, Sansa,” he said into her hair. 

“Then take me,” she replied. 

And he did, pushing her against the wall, lifting her up, grabbing her ass while his cock thrust inside of her, and she wrapped her legs around him, the tapestry hung there cushioning her back from the hard stones. She placed one hand on his shoulder to balance herself, and the other she ran over his face cupping his cheek with her palm. She knew that if it were not for the darkness of the room, their eyes would meet, gazing into each other while he slid in and out of her, using his hands to rock her hips against him. She wanted nothing more but to look into his face, to see him, to see the love and desire, that she was certain was there, but longed to read written across his features anyway. 

But as he increased the pace of his thrusts, and she moaned, arching into him, rubbing her clit against her, heat pulsing through her, she forgot about her desire to see him, let go of anything but the feeling of their bodies together, connected, of the pleasure of his manhood inside of her, the closeness that she felt to him, certain that it did not matter if she never saw him for she felt him, she knew him, she was inside of him as much as he was inside of her and that there was no need for her to see the surface of man whose depths she sensed, understood, without sight. She cried out his name and with a groan, he spilled his seed. 

He eased her down and kissed her, lightly, gently taking her hand and leading her to the bed, his seed snaking down her thigh as she walked. He cradled her in his arms, and she rested her head on his chest, hoping that tonight this would be enough to chase away the nightmares and the other things that haunted her so. 

But later that night, when she woke, her body slick with sweat, her hair damp at her temples and the nape of her neck, her heart still pounding from the nightmare, she knew what she had to do. Just one glimpse of him, she promised herself. She would look on him for but a moment and then she would be satisfied to spend the rest of her night in the darkness. 

So, she opened the draw of her bedside table, removed the black-wicked candle, her hands trembling slightly, and whispered “ignis.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The candle flared to life, and Sansa was surprised by how bright it was, how much the flame hurt her eyes, which she supposed had grown accustomed to the darkness. She took a deep breath, her heart pounding, and turned to look at Jon, where he was sprawled on his back. She gasped, and then quickly clamped her mouth shut, afraid that the noise might have woken him. He stirred slightly, reaching for her, and finding her spot empty, he mumbled something in his sleep, but he did not wake, and her heart grew full watching him. 
> 
> He was beautiful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank for all of your very kind comments and I apologize for all of the heartbreak. :'(
> 
> Thanks also to Sarastarbuck for all of her help with this chapter. <3

The candle flared to life, and Sansa was surprised by how bright it was, how much the flame hurt her eyes, which she supposed had grown accustomed to the darkness. She took a deep breath, her heart pounding, and turned to look at Jon, where he was sprawled on his back. She gasped, and then quickly clamped her mouth shut, afraid that the noise might have woken him. He stirred slightly, reaching for her, and finding her spot empty, he mumbled something in his sleep, but he did not wake, and her heart grew full watching him. 

He was beautiful. 

Dark curls framed his face, soft and peaceful in sleep. His lips were full, his beard short, though she knew these things from all the times they had brushed against her body. Still, it was one thing to feel the fullness of his lips, the bristle of his beard, against her breasts, her thighs, her cunt, and quite another to see them. She took in his straight nose, his dark brows, his full lashes, the scar that ran down his cheek. She wished that he could see his eyes, though she knew their color already from the many times she had looked upon his portrait. They were deep and grey as a summer storm, and she wondered if they still looked so sad. 

Her eyes roved over his chest, the hard muscles and the the scars what were written across them--her heart pained to think of how he had come to have so many, wanting nothing more than to protect him from enduring any more such injury-- to the dark hair that trailed from his navel to his manhood. 

He was beautiful, this man that she loved. And though she knew it could not be, she wished that she could touch him, could feel him, run her fingers through his hair and down his chest, as she had done so many times before, that she could see how he gazed at her just before he kissed her, that she could look into his eyes as they made love. 

So, instead, she contented herself with gazing upon him, for how long she could not say, her heart overflowing as she tried to memorize every line and curve and plane of his face, the way that one curl fell across his forehead, the slight movement of his lips as he dreamed. For she did not know when she would see him again, if she would see him again, or if they would be forced to spend the rest of their lives clinging together in the darkness. If that was to be the case, so be it. For now, at least, she knew what he looked like, had a memory of him that she would cherish forever, would hold close through all her days and nights. She knew that she ought to put out the candle, lay down beside him, rest her head on his chest and feel him tighten his arm around her, as he instinctively did in the night, but she could not yet force herself to look away. 

So, she let the candle continue to burn, and she was so enraptured looking at Jon, observing every little detail of his face, that she did not notice the small rivulette of wax that ran down the side of the candle, until it touched her fingers, hot and burning. “Oh,” she exclaimed, and she jerked her arm, a reflex and a condemnation, for three drops of wax fell from the candle and onto Jon’s chest. 

He jerked awake, his eyes flying open, wide and uncomprehending. And she could not help herself from noticing their soft grey color, just as she had imagined, like the sky after a winter storm has calmed. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just took in the room, the drops of wax, bright red and so much like blood, on his chest, the candle, her, still holding it, the light trembling with her fingers, and then he spoke. “Sansa,” he said, his voice more mournful than angry, though she could see the emotions at war on his face. “Oh, Sansa, what have you done?”

“Jon, I…” she said, but she did not know how to continue, how to explain her nightmares and her longing to look on him, just once, for when confronted with his expression, hopeless and dismayed, she knew that such justifications were shallow when compared to the depths of her betrayal. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly, feeling the inadequacy of the words even as she said them and unable to stop the tears that flooded her eyes. 

“As you should be, for you have doomed us both,” he said, and she wished that he would rail against her for her foolishness, his voice harder, angry instead of how it sounded now, full of a heavy sorrow, the weight of which seemed likely to crush them. He took a deep breath. “Had you but lasted the year, had you slept by my side without seeing my face for just a bit longer, we could have both been free. But now…” he trailed off. 

“Now, what?” she said, her voice choked with the tears that slid freely down her face. 

“Now she will come for me, and she will take me as her husband, the father of a new dynasty that will remind the world what they have forgotten, of the power of dragons, of fire and blood.” 

“What? Jon, I don’t understand…” she began, but he cut her off, his voice firm, though not cold. 

“I will tell you what I can in the short time we have, for you must be off, and quickly, Sansa. If she finds you…. You must be gone before she arrives,” he paused. “Do you remember I spoke of an aunt? A girl who was of an age with me?” 

Sansa nodded. “You told me she had died. Lost with the rest of your family.” 

“Aye, lost when the Targaryen empire fell, and she was. But not dead, changed. She came to me here full of ambitions to revenge our family, to bring this continent to its knees. I told her that I would have none of it, that enough had died for our family’s conquest of this land and her people. A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing, she told me, and I felt for her. I truly did, for I remembered the girl she had been, so I begged her to stay here with me, to try to find a bit of peace for what remained of our family, before it died with us. But she refused, said that we could not stay in these lands, that the Starks had cursed them to be as cold as the blood that flowed in their veins and staying here would freeze the fire in ours. She told me that I must leave this place, should go with her to the land where it was always summer, which was never touched by the cold.” 

Sansa felt herself shudder, though she did not know if it was from talk of the cold or revenge. Jon must have noticed, for he frowned, but then pulled her into his arms. 

“I might have gone with her, too,” he said, and she could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, “though I had come to think of these lands as my home. I would have been her friend and companion. But she would have none of it and insisted not only that we retake, reforge, her family’s empire, but that we continue its line, that I take her as a wife and to bed, and that I father children with her, that she would be the mother of dragons, a continuation of our line.”

Sansa felt her stomach twist at his words. To imagine him in the bed of another, making love with her, planting his seed in her for it to take root... it was all too much. Her chest felt so tight she could scare breath. All of her dreams of faceless children, they were nothing, no longer the horror she had imagined, not when faced with the thought of him inside of, connected with, another woman, one that would be a mother to his silver-haired sons and daughters with cold violet eyes. 

“When I refused her that, she grew even angrier still,” he continued, his voice grim. “She left me, then, and I thought things were over, and would that that was.” He sighed. “But my aunt had other plans for me, and she returned, with a priestess all in red, with scarlet eyes and crimson hair, a worshipper of the lord of light, a member of the cult of fire. My aunt gave me a choice. I could wed her then and have done with it or I could live in these cursed lands as a beast by day and to know the misery of a man at night. She said that if I truly wished to no longer be a dragon she would see to it, that if I so longed to be a part of the North, so be it, I would become one of its creatures and my only chance to break the curse would be to spend a year in bed beside one of my mother’s descendants, a daughter of Winterfell, without her ever seeing my face. If I could do that, I would be free, of the curse, of my aunt. But if I failed, then I would be hers.”

“The red woman?” Sansa said, remembering her mother’s word as she had slipped the candle into her pocket. 

“Yes, a powerful enchantress, who my aunt must have one to her side. They were both, after all,” he said bitterly, “women of fire and blood. Perhaps it was selfish of me to choose the latter, to attempt to prolong what seemed inevitable, for that decision has brought so much suffering to those women, their families, to you, Sansa.” 

“No, Jon,” she said, finally finding the strength to speak. “Please. I was lonely when I first came here, and I missed my family. But the joy, the love,” she said, her voice cracking on the word, “that I have far outweighed any suffering I felt. And if I shall suffer now, the fault of it lies with me.” 

His arms tightened around her. “Sansa, there is much left to tell, but time grows short. I did not wish to take the girls, but, well, it was as if there was a compulsion on me. After the first, Lyessa, I was determined not to take another. And so long as she lived within my castle, I was able to fight the compulsion, and I thought I might wait for my death with her by my side and let the rest of my mother’s family live in peace. It would be a sad life for both of us, yet it would be over soon enough. But as I watched her age, I did not, and I realized that my aunt had planned for this, that the red woman’s curse had frozen my age.”

“Jon,” Sansa said, nearly choking on his name. 

He looked at her, but his eyes were so sad that she did not think that she could say any more, and when she didn’t, he went on. “As the years passed, I became better at fighting the compulsion, but six times more I surrendered to its impulse, brought a girl here to refuse me and then to watch as she lived and died in misery. I should have put a stop to it, to give my aunt what she wished, but I chafed against her. She came to me many times, offered me the easy way out, all I need do is bend the knee and pledge myself to her as a servant and consort. Perhaps it was the North in my veins, which after all those many years still remembered freedom and refused to be party to its conquest once again, but I denied her still. For I knew that though my aunt had hidden herself away, once she had me by her side and a babe in her belly, she would attempt to reforge her family’s empire, and I wanted no part in it.”

“Jon,” she said again. “I’m so sorry.” 

He pressed his lips to her head. “I know, sweet girl, as am I. But, please, let me finish. Because then you came, Sansa, and for the first time, I dared to hope that I might break the curse. I do not know how she knew that we were close, that we might actually do it, but the red woman came to me and told me that you might go home to visit your family, that if you returned, the curse could yet be broken.”

“She had been to Winterfell,” she said in a small voice. “She was the one who gave my mother that damned candle. My mother… I told her… and then she...”

“Yes, well, the red woman could not directly interfere with the curse and our attempts to break it, but she used her influence to do what she could to ensure that we did not succeed. I feared that she might be plotting something, it is not in either of their natures to show kindness, which is why I warned you against speaking to anyone of us.”

“I wish that I had listed. I wish you had not let me go.”

“I had to,” he said sadly. “For I had long since fallen in love with you, and wished for nothing more than your happiness, even if it was at the cost of my own.” 

“And now I have cost us both,” she said, tears in her voice. “What will happen to you?” 

“She will come, is likely already on her way here. And she will take me to her castle and force me to submit. She will marry me--” 

“But we are already wed,” Sansa said, cutting him off. “We are handfast.” 

“She will either not recognize the ritual or will not care,” he paused, and continued grimly. “My family has never shied from either incest or polygamy. But if you are here, Sansa, I fear for what she will do to you. For I will be unable to conceal the love that I feel for you and that is sure to enrage her. You must go now and quickly.” 

“Jon, I can’t leave you,” she said, as she clung to him. “I love you. I might be a stupid, silly girl. I might have ruined everything. But I love you, Jon. I cannot let you go.” 

“And I love you, Sansa, which is why you must. I might suffer at my aunt’s hands, but I could not bear to witness the torment that she would force you to endure.”

“Will I ever see you again?” 

“It breaks my heart to say it, Sansa, but I hope not. For both our sakes. If I come to you again, it will be as a conqueror, not a lover. I shall do my best to appease her and quell her ambitions, but she has had centuries to stew, and I do not believe that she will be easily tempered.” 

“Jon,” Sansa said, her heart breaking around his name. To never see him again, to never hold him, kiss him, love him, it was too much to bear. 

His lips met hers, full of the sorrow and the longing that she already felt for him. He pulled her closer, and she was certain that for all of his insistence that she must leave, and quickly, he did not want to let her go. Their kiss deepened, and she felt him grow hard against her and she knew that they needed to make love one last time, that she did not know how to say goodbye to him, but this was the closest she could manage to a fair well, so she guided him inside of her, regretting that of all the times they had been together, that this time, their last, had to be hurried, rushed, that they could not take their time, that she could not savor every inch of his skin, feel his lips on every inch of hers, but that they had to satisfy themselves with this final frantic coupling. It was the first time that they had made love in the light, and it seemed that she had gotten her wish after all, but when Sansa looked into his eyes, all she saw was the sadness that she knew was mirrored in her own. When he spilled his seed inside of her, he held her, unwilling or unable to let her go, as she sobbed against him, and she felt his tears join hers. 


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa knew that she needed to move, that she could not stay supported by, protected by his chest, that once she might have, but with a whispered word she had ruined everything, had ruined any chance she might have at happiness, had ruined both of their chances. 
> 
> And she had no one to blame but herself for that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to comment and leave kudos. So sorry to have broken all of your hearts. This chapter was the hardest to write, so I apologize in advance if I break them all again. :'(
> 
> Thank you to my dear Sarastarbuck who is not only an amazing beta-reader, but it one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever met.

Sansa knew that she needed to move, that she could not stay supported by, protected by his chest, that once she might have, but with a whispered word she had ruined everything, had ruined any chance she might have at happiness, had ruined both of their chances. 

And she had no one to blame but herself for that. 

“Can you forgive me, Jon?” she whispered. “Do you think you ever might be able to?” 

“I don’t think that I could ever not forgive you, Sansa,” he replied, and he kissed the top of her head. 

“I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive myself.” 

“You must,” he said, his fingers gently cupped her chin and he tilted her head up so that he could look into her eyes, which were still glistening with tears and red from crying. “You must try to find a way to be happy.” 

“How can I be happy without my heart? WIthout you?” 

“You must try. For me. I shall have little joy of my own, but I will take comfort in knowing that you have managed to find some.” He paused. “You must go,” he said, his expression pained and the words costing him greatly. “It grows too late already. We should not have…” he trailed off. “We must hurry now.” 

“I can’t. I can’t leave you,” she said, looking down, too ashamed to meet his eyes for long. 

“You must. Please, Sansa, for me,” he pleaded, and there was something in his voice, in his eyes, the grief and fear there, that helped her to find her resolve. 

“Where? Where can I go?” 

“You need to make your way back to Winterfell, to your family. You will be safe there, or as safe as you can be. Listen carefully. Do you remember the tunnel that Aiduz led you to after your return?” She nodded, though she knew that she would not make it there on her own, not through the twisting halls of this palace that she had never fully understood. “It leads out of this castle,” he continued, “a secret exit. Make your way south. It is going to be dangerous, and difficult, but I know you can do it. Do you hear me, Sansa,” he said, taking her shoulders and looking into her face once again, his eyes panicked and insistent as they met hers. “You can do this. You must. Do you understand?” 

She nodded. She would survive, for him. She would find a way to live, though she did not know how. She had grown up not imagining that she could ever have the kind of life that she had found with him, and now she could not imagine life alone, with some other man, without him. “I will try,” she said, her voice small. 

“Promise me,” he said. 

“I promise.” 

He helped her to pack, clothes, rations, anything else she might need to for the trip. From her draw, she took his letters, the dried flowers, the copy of _Bael the Bard_ that he had given to her. These things had sustained her during the loneliest hours of her days, during her return to Winterfell. They would be all that she would have of him in the years to come. They would provide her with scant comfort, she knew, these reminders of all that she had lost, but they were also her only connection to him, so she packed them with care. 

She wished that she had something to give him, something for him to remember her, though she did not know how much comfort he would take in reminiscing about the woman whom he had loved and who had betrayed him. But nothing in this place was truly hers to give, except her body, her heart, her soul, all of which she had given him already, though it had done him little good it seemed. Thinking, she twirled a strand of hair around her finger, and then paused. 

Finding her sewing scissors where she always left them on the table, she sheared off a piece of her long auburn hair. Kissed by fire, Jon had called it as he had kissed it himself, run his fingers through it. She knew she would look foolish, with a chunk of her hair missing, but what did she care about such vain things now? She looped the hair, and finding a blue ribbon, tied it. 

“Jon?” she said tentatively, and approached him as he was shoving a pair of mittens into a satchel. “I…” she began as he looked up. Unable to find the words, she took one of his hands, and pressed the lock of hair into it. “To remember me by,” she said, her voice once again choking with tears. 

“I could never forget you,” he said softly, but he took the lock of hair, staring at it for a moment, before tucking it away. “Thank you, Sansa,” he said. 

“Please do not thank me,” she said, “not after everything, Jon.” 

He looked at her sadly, but did not say any more and he resumed his attempts to fit anything she might possibly need into the bag. 

When she was dressed and packed, he took her by her hand, and led her through the castle. She had expected that they would go directly to the tunnels and was surprised when they halted before the door of his rooms. She had passed the door during some of her wanderings, but she had done her best to avoid it, because it reminded her of the first time she had sneaked inside and of the shame that she had felt at that breach of trust. How small a thing it seemed now in light of her larger betrayal. 

“I will be but a minute,” Jon said, and he returned quickly, holding the silver mirror that she had seen on his table when she had trespassed into his room. 

“Take this with you,” he said. “It is enchanted. When you look into it, you will see what is in my mind.” 

“Thank you,” she said, as she hurriedly shoved it into her bag, trying to ensure that it was cushioned between the clothing she had packed. It was a kind gift, but not one she was sure she was brave enough to use, for she was uncertain that she wished to see what he truly thought of her. Not after she had betrayed him in the manner that she had. 

She followed him through the corridors, down the stairs, and he helped her, holding a torch in one hand and hers in the other, over the uneven natural stone of the tunnel floor, which was, admittedly, easier to navigate in her sturdy boots than it had been in the delicate slippers she had been wearing during her first venture into this place. The heat of the cavern, though, remained oppressive, especially as she was dressed now in traveling clothes warm enough to endure the still cold nights of the North, and the hair at her temples and the back of her neck was soon slick with sweat. 

He stopped when they came to a place in the cavern that was illuminated by those hundreds of pricks of light, still so like the starlight. “I had said that I wished to see you illuminated by this glow,” he said sadly. “I wish it need not have been like this. That it had not been a goodbye.”

“It doesn’t need to be,” she said, breathlessly, and feeling the fool for not thinking of this sooner. “Come with me, Jon. We can run and hide together. We don’t have to part.”

When he looked at her, his eyes were sad. “That would not be a life for either of us, Sansa. At least this way, one of us will get to live.” 

“I don’t care,” she entreated. “I’d rather live as a beggar or with the Freefolk if it means that I can live with you. Rather that than as a queen with anyone else. Surely we could find a place to hide ourselves away in these wild lands.”

He cupped her face in his hand. “If it were just the two of us, Sansa, I would never leave your side, but I fear my aunt’s wrath if we were to do such a thing. I cannot let others die, lose loved ones, so that we can chase happiness together.” 

She knew that he was right, but such knowledge did not make it easier to let him go, for his honor, his selflessness, his compassion, only made her love him the more.

“I dare not go any further,” he said. “She will be here soon.” He paused, gathering himself. “Sansa, I…” he began, but could not continue. 

“I know,” she said and kissed him. 

In the end, it was she who had to break away from him, though he let her go. She remembered the strength, the courage, that it had taken her to walk to the white wolf as he waited for her outside of Winterfell; it took a hundredfold more to do what she needed to now, as she took one step and then another away from him. She turned to look back, seeing him, through the tears in her eyes, still holding the torch, watching her leave. “I love you,” she breathed, something that she had said so many times, and yet could not manage to say louder than a whisper now. She was not sure if he had heard her, but his lips turned to a sad smile, and she knew that he had, and that he loved her as well, and somehow she found within her the resolve, not to run back to him, to throw her arms around his neck and swear that she would never be parted from him. Somehow she managed to turn from him one last time and move one foot and then another, knowing that each step took her farther from him, from the love that they had known, from the life that they had promised one another. 

The cavern glowed with those pricks of light, but it matter not. Sansa’s eyes were so full of tears that she could scarcely see a thing and she stumbled and nearly fell a number of times as she tried to make her way through the cavern. Each time, she cursed herself for her stupidity, for her clumsiness, for her lack of any ability to do anything but dream about beautiful songs, about happy endings that could not be. If she had been Arya, she had no doubt that she would be able to survive the journey, to fulfill her promise to Jon to find a way to live. But she was not, and she was scarcely able to make her way through this cavern. How could she possibly hope to navigate, hope to endure, hope to persevere in these wild lands. 

She did not think she could, and she felt a sob rack her body as she nearly collapsed from the pain of it, from the overwhelming grief of the loss she had caused herself. She could not go on. Better to die here and now, she thought, than to prolong her suffering only to die out there. At least if she died within the castle walls, she would perish in a place where she had known true love, true happiness, where she had known him. It was only the thought of Jon that got her back to her feet, that kept her going as she fumbled her way through the cavern. For she had made a promise to try to survive, and she had broken so many promises to him already, she was determined not to break this one. 

She felt a cool breeze, and she knew that she must be approaching the cavern’s opening, the secret exit that Jon had told her of. The pricks of light became further and further apart and the darkness seemed to engulf her, until its ceiling was replaced by the sky and the lights of the cavern by the actual stars and the glow of the moon. She stood still for a moment, breathing in the cold night air, and gazing at the stars, which seemed so cold and distant, and yet so beautiful.

As she looked at them, a shape passed before them, a great winged beast silhouette against their light. Sansa froze, fearing that any movement might attract the creature’s attention. But it circled the cliff a number of times, each time lower, it seemed, and Sansa wondered if she should scramble back to the cover of the cave. But it came to a landing on the other side of the rise, and terror roared through her, because Sansa knew that it had come for Jon. 

A brave part of her that she had not even known existed wished to rush back into the castle, to battle this beast and save him even if it meant sacrificing herself. And had she been Arya, she might have tried. Had she been Robb, she certainly would have. But she had made a promise to Jon to live and such an act would surely get her killed. So she resolved to keep her word and leave this place. Leave him. Because she had told him she would. 

It was only then that she realized that she had not said goodbye to Aiduz. The little light had been her only companion during those early days of her confinement, which had stretched unbearably long before her. And she had left him, and Jon would leave him too, and now he would be all alone in those walls, and she had been too caught up in her own grief and guilt and pain that she had not summoned him so that she might bid him farewell. 

Just one more betrayal, she thought as she stood alone, in the wild lands of the true North and began the long walk south. 


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa could not say for sure how far she walked before she had to stop, too exhausted to go on. She had traveled all night, the horizon just beginning to lighten from black to a deep indigo in the east. It had been hours since she had left the castle, had left Jon to the fate to which she had condemned him, but it felt like days. She could not believe that it had been just that night that he had made love to her against the wall, that she had wrapped her legs around him, wanting, needing, him deeper, closer, wishing never to let him go. It felt like a lifetime ago already and she wondered how she could possibly survive the coming hours, days, years without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for all of the angst. :'( And that you all for the very kind comments and kudos. 
> 
> Thanks to Sarastarbuck for being an absolute delight and an amazing beta-reader. <3

Sansa could not say for sure how far she walked before she had to stop, too exhausted to go on. She had traveled all night, the horizon just beginning to lighten from black to a deep indigo in the east. It had been hours since she had left the castle, had left Jon to the fate to which she had condemned him, but it felt like days. She could not believe that it had been just that night that he had made love to her against the wall, that she had wrapped her legs around him, wanting, needing, him deeper, closer, wishing never to let him go. It felt like a lifetime ago already and she wondered how she could possibly survive the coming hours, days, years without him.

But she tried to push such thoughts from her mind. Dwelling on her regrets would not help her to survive these lands. The spring had come, and the world beyond the broken wall was no longer buried beneath a white shroud, but Sansa knew it would be foolish to allow herself to believe that it had grown safer with the warmth. The cold might not so readily kill her, but there were plenty of other fatal things that hunted in the untamed North. She would need shelter, she thought, if she wished to rest, though she did not know where she might find it or how she might build it. It mattered not that she was unsure if a fire would keep her safe or expose her to more danger, for she did not know how to start one. As a lady, such things had always been done for her at Winterfell and she had not joined her siblings when her father had showed the boys, who one day, he insisted might have need for such skills, how to survive in untamed lands. Nor had she accompanied Arya when she had demanded her brothers teach her what their father had shown them, because she had as much a right as they did to know how to strike flint into flame. But Sansa had not been taught and had learned little that might help her to survive her journey home. Sewing and songs would be of little use to her now.

She walked on, her legs weary, until she came to the sheer face of a cliff that blocked her way south. It was too steep for her to climb, though she could just imagine Bran scurrying up its face, finding hand and footholds in a surface that seemed smooth to her eye. But she could not imagine how she might scale its heights, so she would have to walk around it. She forced her legs, heavy and aching already, to keep moving, until she noticed a shallow crevice in the rock. It was just deep and wide enough for her to wedge herself inside, and it seemed as safe a place as any to rest a bit before continuing on. She sat with her bag on her lap and pulled out some rations, gnawing at the salted meat Jon had packed for her. She did not feel hungry. Indeed with each bite she took, she was more certain that the churning in her stomach would make her ill. But she knew that she had to eat, that if she was going to keep her promise, if she was going to survive, she must keep up her strength. So she ate, hoping that by some miracle she would keep walking, make her way home, honor her last words to Jon.

She dared eat no more, so she put away the meat, safely back into her bag. The sun was rising, bright pinks and oranges across the sky and Sansa wondered if Jon had taken his wolf form, or if, because she had failed to break the curse, he was no longer trapped in the body of a beast but faced an imprisonment far worse, forced into a marriage he did not want. 

As she would be, she realized, the pain of losing Jon compounded by the fact that she would be expected, be required, to wed again. She had been ruined and would never make the kind of brilliant match her mother had hoped for, but she was still the daughter of Ned Stark and few northern lords would refuse the chance to bind their house to his, even if his daughter was no longer a maid.

Ruined, she thought bitterly. And perhaps she had been. For how was she supposed to meekly accept her wifely duty, allow a husband she did not love to thrust inside her, grunt above her, spill his seed and plant his child in her belly, when now she knew what could be between a man and a woman, the love, the pleasure? How could she give another man sons and daughters when now she could picture the children she and Jon were meant to have, knew how beautiful they would have been. She was ruined, she thought, though not in the way the Spetas meant. 

She should not, could not, think about such things, she reminded herself, for doing so made her stomach clench and her fingers tremble and she needed to survive this because she promised Jon she would, and that was one promise she refused to break.

She knew she should get up and continue south, but she was so tired and it felt so good to sit, and she would just wait until the last traces of rose left the sky and then she would be on her way. 

Sansa had not meant to fall asleep, but she must have, because she woke with a start to a sharp, jabbing pain in her side. She moaned, and opened her eyes, and saw a group of three Freefolk, a woman and two men looking at her. 

“See, I told ya she was alive,” one of the men said. 

“I didn’t think she weren’t. Folk don’t die of the cold up here the way they used to.” It took her a moment to realize that they were speaking the Old Tongue, or at least some dialect of it, though not the one her father had insisted she learn from Maester Luwin. 

“You reckon she’s a spearwife, Bones?” the first man. 

“Do you both have shit for brains?” the woman interjected. She was young, with sharp grey eyes and a tangle of messy mousy brown hair. “Use your eyes, you fools. She’s a Southerner.” 

“Then what’s she doin’ all the way up here? Tell us that, Osha, if you’re so wise,” the young man said.

“You think I’m a witch? That I could tell you that. Just because I have enough sense to see what’s right before my eyes don’t mean I have the second sight,” the woman said. “Maybe the Thenns took her on one of their raids.” 

“If the Thenns took her, they’d have picked all that pretty meat from her bones.” 

“Don’t be spreading that horse shit, Lenyl. They still using that to scare the piss out of little Southern boys and girls?” said the man called Bones. Which she supposed was a fitting name, given the skeletal splay he wore across his chest. He seemed the very picture of the wildingly brute that Old Nan had painted in her stories. She tried, in vain, to remind herself of what Jon had told her about the Freefolk, that they were not the monsters that the Northern legends made them out to be, but such reassurances did little to quell the pounding of her heart. “Besides the Thenns almost never dain to leave that valley of theirn.” 

‘Maybe she was stolen by Tormund or one of his lot. Heard he and his band have been roamin’ round these parts.” 

Tormund. Jon, she thought, had mentioned a Tormund, had called him a friend. It was a risk, but one that she supposed she must take, for she did not like the looks of this man with a shirt made of bones and a skull over his face and a skeletal staff in his hand, and she shuddered to think of where those bones, many of which looked distinctly human, had come from. “Yes,” she said, quietly, and then more firmly. “Yes. Tormund. He stole me. From my home.” 

“So, she speaks,” the younger, blond-haired man, Lenyl, said with a grin. “I was beginning to think you were dumb, girl.”

“You know how they raise those Southern girls. Teach them not to speak their minds. Maybe them Southerns have a few things figured out,” Bones said with a guffaw at his joke. Osha looked at him from the corner of her eye and scowled. 

Sansa shook her head and unsteadily got to her feet. Her legs were stiff from her time sleeping in the cramped crevice, and she tried not to wince as she rose, for she would not be thought some stupid southern girl. For though she might be that, she was also the daughter of Eddard Stark and she had the North in her veins and she would not be afraid. 

“You say you’re Giantsbane’s?” Osha asked, and though Sansa, based on the woman’s slow, sly smile, “What you doing out here all alone, then?” 

“I got lost,” she said, jutting out her chin. 

“Lost?” the woman responded, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes. Lost.” 

Osha turned to the men. “If she’s run from Tormund no doubt he’ll be looking for her. She’s a pretty one. And you know as well as I he’s got fondness for them been kissed by fire. We best return her.” 

Both men eyed her, and Sansa knew well the expression that crossed their features, had seen it on the faces of so many men who had looked on her and then spoke quietly to her father about alliances and bonds that were not easily broken. “Or,” Lenyl said, “we could keep her for ourselves. Been a while since I got to lie atop a Southern woman. So much softer than you Spearwives.”

“You want to lie something that’s just going to lie there limp as a dead fish than you might as well find a corpse to fuck. This thaw’s softened them up,” Osha said. “If the two of you want to risk your cocks fucking Giantsbane’s woman, I can’t say it would be much of a loss. But know that I won’t fight by your side just so you can dip your pricks in soft Southern cunt.” 

Sansa did her best to school her expression, to wear the only armour she had been trained in, but despite all of her practice playing the part of the impassive lady, she found it difficult to keep her features neutral. For a woman to speak that way, and in mixed company, to speak that way at all, well, hearing it would probably send Septa Mordane into a fainting fit. Even after everything she had done with Jon, even after she’d had his head between her legs and his manhood deep inside of her, she still could not help but feel a bit scandalized, and she felt her cheeks growing red. 

“You got something to say, girl?” Bones snarled at her. 

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. 

He sighed and looked at Lenyl and then to Osha. “Suppose you’re right. This one ain’t hardly worth the trouble. Seen this type before. Pretty little thing that she is, won’t last long in these lands. Not hardy enough for the wilds.”

“Ain’t Tormund usually camped out just North of the pass this time of year?” Lenyl asked, a bit reluctantly. 

Osha shrugged. “Who’s to say? Ain’t been a year like this before.” She turned to Sansa. “Girl, she said curtly. “You know where we can find Tormund?” 

“N-no,” she said. “I got separated from him. Lost.” 

“Useless,” Lenyl muttered. And Sansa knew he was right, for even had she been with Tormund Giantsbane, whoever he was, she scarcely knew how she could go about finding him. She did not know where she was, let alone how to navigate these lands with no roads or signs to guide her. 

“We should seek out Sixskins. His hut ain’t too far from here. Put them eagle eyes of his to good use,” Osha said. 

“Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a girl who ain’t even going to wet my cock in the meantime,” Lenyl said, still eyeing Sansa. 

“Don’t like it either. But Tormund’s a man better made a friend than an enemy,” Bones said, though Sansa could tell that words chaffed a bit. “Come on, girl,” he said. “Rule is that if you can’t keep up you’re left behind. These lands devour those ain’t strong enough to walk them.” And with that he turned and began heading east, Lenyl close behind him. 

“He ain’t japing about keeping up,” Osha said. And, as she followed the men, Sansa did her best to force her weary legs to keep pace. “That’s it, girl,” the woman said, and Sansa was surprised by the softness that she had not heard in the woman’s voice before. “Stick close to me. Tormund’s a horny old goat, but he don’t take his pleasure with a woman who isn’t willing. Feel better about you being stuck with him than with this lot.” 

“Why are you with them, then?” Sansa said, a bit breathless from the strain of trying to match the woman’s strides. 

She shrugged. “They don’t bother me. First night I was with them, I showed Lenyl what would happen to any man who tried to force himself between my legs. They are both too attached to their balls to come sniffing around my cunt again.” 

“Why are you helping me?” 

The woman looked at her, her eyes fierce. “Listen, girl. I don’t know nothing of your story expect that the one you’re telling ain’t true. But that don’t matter. Don’t care who you really are or where you really come from. No woman should be forced to take a man to bed against her will. Why you want to go to Tormund, I can’t reckon. But I suppose you have your reasons. And I’ll see you safely there. Cause if I don’t there are few here that will and I won’t be having your ghost pestering me.” 


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa trudged on and if anyone noticed how tired she was, how heavy her legs felt, they took no mind. Osha certainly did not slow her pace. Her kindness, if indeed kindness it had been, extended only far enough to keep Sansa alive and unharmed; the other woman cared not for her comfort. And Sansa did not blame her for that. What the spearwife had done to keep her from Bones and Lenyl was likely more than she deserved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a day later than usual, but I've finished up my grading for the semester, and I promise to have a chapter up next Wednesday. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment and leave kudos.   
> And of course, thanks to SaraStarbuck for Betareading.

Sansa trudged on and if anyone noticed how tired she was, how heavy her legs felt, they took no mind. Osha certainly did not slow her pace. Her kindness, if indeed kindness it had been, extended only far enough to keep Sansa alive and unharmed; the other woman cared not for her comfort. And Sansa did not blame her for that. What the spearwife had done to keep her from Bones and Lenyl was likely more than she deserved. 

They were heading south, or as near as she could tell, and that heartened her, though she quickly gave up any fantasy of escape. It was difficult travel over the uneven ground, the melting ice and snows leaving the earth soft, their boots sinking into thick mud, requiring more burning effort to lift each leg, to take each step, sinking deeper and deeper with each movement. The Freefolk seemed unbothered by the terrain and Sansa realized that they were used to pushing their way through drifts of snow. Were she to try to run she had no doubt they would catch her, and she did not care to think what they might take from her in payment for the trouble she had caused. 

For all of its savagery, though the land was beautiful. The new grass that Jon had described peaking through the snow had grown longer and a deeper green. Where they walked, there was no snow, though Sansa could see some capping the distant mountains. Instead everything was green and alive, and she even thought she heard, in the distance, the birds that Jon had spoken of. 

When they stopped for the night, she accompanied Osha to collect wood for a fire, both so that she might be of use and that she might avoid being alone with the men. 

“Once the sun goes down,” the woman told her, “you don’t leave my side, you understand?” Sansa nodded. “Good. In the dark, a man often enough forgets what little sense he has during the day.” She paused. “And those two have little enough sense even then.” The other woman pressed a small hunting knife into Sansa’s hand. “Can’t tell if you’ve ever used one of these, but it ain’t hard. Men are just meat, and all you have to do is slash ‘em in tender spot. You know anything about knife work?” she said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Stick them with the pointy end,” Sansa said, hoping that if her sister was forced to marry Ramsay Bolton that someone would do her the kindness of slipping her a blade. 

“That’s the idea,” the woman said. “Course, there’s more than that. But if you can manage to do that much I suppose you should be grateful.” 

Sansa thanked the woman and slipped the blade into her belt, beneath her cloak. 

It isn’t just men, she thought, who lose their sense in the dark. She did her best to hide the tears that came unbidden to her eyes when she thought of Jon and their time alone in the darkness and the things that she had been brave and foolish enough to do. And her final folly, the reason why she was here, traveling in the company of men who might very well attempt to take by force what to Jon she had freely given. If Osha saw her tears she said nothing of it, and Sansa wondered if the women of the Freefolk had less reason than their southern counterparts, or more. 

Sansa did as she was told and Lenyl and Bones kept their distance, deciding, no doubt, that she was not worth risking meeting the keen edge of the knife, much larger than the one she had given Sansa, that Osha had conspicuously honed while they sat around the fire. 

She woke the next morning feeling surprisingly refreshed, still clutching her satchel to her chest. She had laid down the night before curled around her, guarding it, and the precious links to Jon it contained, as best she could. She had expected to toss and turn, unable to fall asleep, or if she did manage it, to be plagued by the nightmares that had haunted her. But exhaustion, she learned, is a powerful thing, and she quickly fell into a dreamless sleep. When she stood, though, her legs protested and burned, and she knew that travel would be difficult. She also knew that she must bear it, as she did all the pain she felt, alone. 

They had walked for less than half a day before they came to a rundown hovel, a shack with dirty rags and shreds of smoke coming from the chimney. Three wolves sat in the grass beside the cottage, one grisled and fierce and missing an eye, while the others were younger, leaner, with a hungry look to them as they watched the humans approach. The large one-eyed wolf let out a low growl, causing a shadowcat, which Sansa had not seen, sunning herself on the other side of the hut, to lazily lift her head. 

“Call off your dogs, Sixskins,” Bones called out as the wolves got to their feet. “Unless you wanna wear their furs in a different fashion.” 

A stooped, grey-faced little man came to the door of the hut, and the wolves quieted, lying back down. “My Lord of Bones,” he said. “What brings you to my door?” 

“You owe me a debt.”

“That I do.” 

“I’m here to collect a part of it. See this woman,” he said gesturing to Sansa and she felt the grey man’s eyes on her, hungry and predatory as the wolves beside her door. She did not like those eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. She’s one skin you ain’t gonna get into. Says she’s Tormund’s.” 

The man made a dramatic show of looking around. “I don’t see Giantsbane. It seems to me the woman is yours to do with what you please.” 

Osha stepped forward. “Until Tormund gets word that the lot of you stole his woman. You know that is not our way.” 

“That still does not explain why you have come to me.” 

“We need your eagle’s eyes,” Lenyl said. 

“Find Tormund and his band and I will consider part of the debt you owe me paid,” Bones said. 

“All of it?.” 

“Some of it. It’s a small enough thing to ask, and ain’t no danger to you or your bird.” 

“It is quite a bit to do for a girl who isn’t even yourn,” Sixskins said with a small, cunning smile. 

The Lord of Bones shrugged. “The more I do the more I’m owed when collecting time comes.”

“Very well. This may take some time.” Sixskins said. He sat in the grass in front of his hut and his eyes rolled back in his head. His face was grotesque, Sansa thought, limp with only the whites of his eyes showing. From above them, they heard a shriek of an eagle, which circled over them and the house once before rising higher into the air and flying off to the west. 

“Sit, girl,” Osha said. “Rest. We walk again as soon as we know where.”

And Sansa nodded, grateful for the reprieve. Osha sat beside her, but said nothing, as she eyed the shadowcat where it lounged. For a while, it watched them through slitted eyes, and then it seemed to fall asleep. Sansa wondered idly if it purred like the cats in Winterfell that had sometimes climbed into her lap as she read in the library. 

The still quiet was not good for her for she could not stop her thoughts from going to Jon. He was never far from her mind, her thoughts constantly circling back to him, her body full of the grief and guilt and longing that she felt, the regret that weighed heavily on her, threatening to crush her with every breath she took. But she mustn’t cry. She could not let these hard men, this sharp woman, see her sorrow. She could not let them know what she had lost for she feared what the men might take from her if they knew the truth of it. So though agony filled her mind and body, she steeled herself and masked her face and concealed her broken heart. 

When she looked over, Osha was eyeing her, her expression so like that of the shadowcat that it sent a shudder through her. She hoped that she had schooled her features, that the neutral veil she had placed over her visage was not transparent beneath the other woman’s intelligent grey eyes. “I’m not sure you ain’t a ghost already,” the other woman grumbled, and Sansa had to clamp her mouth shut to constrain a bitter laugh. For Osha was more right than she knew; Sansa felt she was already dead in so many ways, in all the ways that mattered. 

The sun rose high in the sky and began making its descent before the skinchanger returned to his body, which shuddered as the man’s soul reentered it, his horrible face contorting.

“Giantsbane is to the east,” the man called Sixskins said. “With a band about twenty strong.”

Bones nodded. “How far?”

Sixskins shrugged. “Five leagues. Maybe seven.”

Lenyl stood from where he had been squatting. “If we leave now, we can make it there by sundown.” 

“Consider part of your debt paid, Varamyr,” the Lord of Bones said. 

The skinchanger nodded his assent, and then eyed Sansa again. “If you were to leave the girl with me, I would owe you more favors still.” 

Bones looked from Sansa to the man, and she had a sinking feeling that he would abandon her here to this horrible little man. She tensed, but she could not run, not from the men who were her captors as much as they were her protectors, not from the woman who shielded her, not from the wolves that had also fixed their eyes on her. If she tried to run, she would be dead or worse, but she would not go meekly, docilely, into that hut. She would fight that fate, even if it killed her. 

“And what good would that be?” Osha spat. “When Tormund and his twenty men come here and take the hide of every one of your skins. And then come after ours if we’re as unlucky as all that.” 

“As it suits you,” Varamyr said, but his eyes remained on Sansa as they readied themselves to leave and began their walk toward Tormund’s camp. 

Travel remained difficult, but Sansa had grown almost used to, numb to, the soreness, the heaviness in her legs as she pushed herself forward. With each step, though, her anxiety grew, for she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of this plan. She was almost certain that Jon had mentioned a Tormund Giantsbane, but what exactly he had said about him, she could not recall. But he could be as rough, as vile, as Varamyr Sixskins or the men she was traveling with now, and she was willingly putting herself in his hands. But it was too late now for such reservations, she thought, too late to undo all of the foolish choices she had made. 

Osha did little to calm her nerves as she walked silently beside her. Since leaving Sixskins’ hut the woman was agitated, and kept looking around her, as though she heard or saw something. Sansa strained to detect what had the woman so on edge, but she knew little of hunting or tracking, and perceived nothing but the sounds of a wild land coming back to life after centuries of winter. 

They walked late into the afternoon, but just as it was beginning to grow dark, Lenyl, who had taken the lead, called out that he could see the camp. Not less than a minute later, a man with a homely face with a narrow head and half of his ear seemed to have been bitten off. He held a bow, arrow knocked and string taught, but when he saw the Lord of Bones, he smiled broadly. 

“My friend,” he said, lowering his bow. “It’s been a while.” 

“Longspear Rek, you’re looking worse for wear.”

Rek grinned sheepishly, his hand going to his mangled ear. “Took Munda to wife. She fought like a she-devil.” 

“Tormund’s girl?” Bones said. “So she got her father’s temper along with his looks.” 

“That’s my woman you’re spewing shit about,” Rek said, though his smile remained wide. “I’d watch your tongue, if I were you, or I’ll let her have a go at you. And I doubt you’ll be able to subdue her half as well. Your spear ain’t half as long,” he finished with a laugh. “Osha. Lenyl,” he said, greeting the others, his gaze then turning to Sansa. “And who’s this?”

Bones narrowed his eyes. “Thought you’d know her. She claims she’s Tormund’s woman. Some southern bitch he stole. Figured he was tired of fathering daughters as ugly as he is.”

“Munda’s prettier than you,” Rek said. “But that’s not saying much, is it? A mammoth’s ass is prettier than you.” 

He eyed Sansa, and she had to say something, but she was not sure what. She did not know if this man knew Jon, if he was one of the allies, friends, that the white wolf had made during his years of fighting. “I’m the wolf girl,” Sansa prompted, and she nearly blushed for how ridiculous she knew she sounded. “Remember, the wolf’s girl.” 

Rek furrowed his brow, and then his eyes widened, in understanding, Sansa hoped, though she could not be certain. “Right, of course,” Rek said. “What’s she doing with you lot?” 

“Said she got lost,” Lenyl said, though the emphasis he put on the final word suggested that none of them had truly believed the story she had spun. “Figured it was in our best interest to see that she was returned. The nights are warmer now, but everyone knows Tormund ain’t fond of a cold bed.”

“No he ain’t,” he said as he looked at Sansa one last time, and she could tell that he was assessing her, attempting to decipher her motives. She could not say what he saw when he looked at her, but he seemed to determine that she was not a threat to either Tormund or his encampment, so he nodded. “Let’s return her to him, then.” 


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camp was small, consisting of a few squat tents, a patchwork of different hides. There were fighters, men and women, lounging on the ground, a few sparring, others playing some sort of game that Sansa did not recognize. It smelled of animal skins, smoke, and unwashed bodies, though Sansa reminded herself that she, very likely, smelled no better than the spearwives that she passed, and she longed for a bath, scented with lavender, lemon, and honey. But it was better not to think of such things, of the way that Jon had buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, how some mornings she would rest her head on his pillow, breathing in pine and snow and wolf. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and kudos. I am almost done drafting this story, and it looks like it will be around a total of 55 chapters, so I hope that you are prepared to take this journey with Sansa and I!
> 
> Thanks to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading and for watching bad Christmas romcoms with me. 
> 
> I hope that you all have a happy and safe holiday.

The camp was small, consisting of a few squat tents, a patchwork of different hides. There were fighters, men and women, lounging on the ground, a few sparring, others playing some sort of game that Sansa did not recognize. It smelled of animal skins, smoke, and unwashed bodies, though Sansa reminded herself that she, very likely, smelled no better than the spearwives that she passed, and she longed for a bath, scented with lavender, lemon, and honey. But it was better not to think of such things, of the way that Jon had buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, how some mornings she would rest her head on his pillow, breathing in pine and snow and wolf. 

Few of the people they passed paid her any mind, though a some called out greetings to Osha, Lenyl, and Bones. One woman loudly reminded Lenyl that he owed her a knife. He dismissed her with a rude gesture and advice about where exactly she might put a blade, which earned him a harsh laugh and the reassurance that she’d rather have a dagger in her pussy than his cock, because at least a knife she would feel. Sansa heard Osha chuckle beside her, her grin broad and her posture more relaxed than Sansa had seen it throughout the journey. 

Rek led them to the largest tent, lifting the flap for Sansa to enter and then allowing it to drop closed behind her. “He’ll want to see her alone,” she heard Rek tell the others, and if they protested, she could not make it out. 

The tent was small and hot and it smelled sour, and Sansa felt her palms grow clammy and her face hot as she waited. She undid her cloak, her hand idly going to the dagger at her belt. If she had cause to use it, would she, could she, she wondered, and hoped that she would not be tested in that way. And when Tormund Giantsbane entered the tent, she said a silent prayer to the old gods of the North that she would not be forced to fight, to struggle against him, for it was but a little knife and he was a very large man. 

Tormund’s hair was red and wild, his lips pressed together, his brow furrowed as his green eyes took her in. “I was told there was a wolf girl waiting for me in my tent,” he said. “But all I see’s a girl. No wolf. The gods gave Rek so much cock they forgot to give him brains.” 

“It’s not his fault,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say, how much to say. The problem is that I don’t know where to begin.” She paused, gathering herself. “I believe you know the white wolf?”

“Aye. I know him.” 

“Well, he is not always a wolf. At night he becomes a man.” Or he did, she thought. “I am his wife.” 

“You’re Lord Snow’s woman,” Tormund said, his eyes widening. 

“Yes, I am his…” she trailed off. I am his and he is mine, she thought. Except he isn’t any longer. I’ve lost him, and now he is hers. But I shall always be his. 

Tormund let out a guffaw. “Should have known there was a woman. He brooded, sullen somehow even as an animal, but less so these past few months. And there is nothing like a woman to lift a man’s spirits along with his pecker.” He eyed her. “He has good taste for a beast. Kissed by fire. We gingers are beautiful, lucky.” 

“I don’t feel particularly lucky,” Sansa said, unable to keep the misery from her voice. Though perhaps, she thought, that was not entirely true. Perhaps she had been lucky, to have been taken by Jon, to be loved by him. Her grief now was the result of bad luck except for that which she had made herself. She should blame her own failings on ill fortune. 

There must have been something in her voice that gave the big man pause. “If you’re here without a wolf,” he said. “Then where is he? Lord Snow is many things, but not fool enough to let his woman wander these wilds alone.” 

“He’s… he’s gone,” she said and she could not keep her voice from breaking. 

“Dead?” Tormund said, all of the mirth leaving his face. 

“No. But gone,” she replied, stumbling over the word. Gone and to where she didn’t know. 

“He left you?” Tormund’s eyes narrowed. 

“No, he was taken. Never to return. The curse… ” she trailed off, for it was, all of it, too much to explain, and she could not yet bear to say aloud the thing she had done, to admit that she had ruined all because of her foolish curiosity, that she had been weak and stupid and unable to resist the temptation to look upon him for just a moment, and so she had doomed them both for eternity. 

“I’m sorry, lass,” he sighed. “He was a good man for a beast or whatever he was.”

“He is a good man,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t usually question the reason for a pretty girl in my bed. My cock does enough thinkin’ on that. But I have a feeling, girl, that you’re not here for a fuckin’, so why have you come to me?” 

“You were allies? Friends? He spoke of you,” she said. 

“Aye. I liked the beast well enough. And I’ll miss the foolish fucker now that he’s gone. But that still doesn’t explain how you found your way into my camp.” 

“The Lord of Bones,” she said. “He found me. When he mentioned your name, I hoped… I was afraid he might….” she trailed off, her voice trembling. “I hoped that if you were Jon’s friend, then perhaps you might be a good man too.” 

“Like to think that I’m better than some. Know I’m better than Rattleshirt, though don’t take much to be better than that pig fucker.” 

“Then, please,” she said, meeting his gaze and not looking away, “help me find my way home.” 

He sighed. “And where is home?”

Home is an enchanted castle, a place I shall never find again, home is the arms of a man whom I lost in an instant, home is a kiss, gentle and sure, she thought. I shall not know such a home again. It crumbled into ashes the moment that I whispered a word and set it ablaze. “Winterfell,” she said.

“That is not a good place to be one of the Freefolk. The kneelers love us not.”

“Please,” she said. “I promised Jon that I would find my way there.” She had promised him that she would survive, and it was one she intended to keep, even though she had failed at so many others. 

“We had not planned to move south,” he said, “now that the spring has come, we need nothing from kneeler lands.” He exhaled. “But you’re Lord Snow’s woman, and I’ll see you safe south.” 

“Thank you,” Sansa breathed. 

“Feel I’m being as big a fool as ever he was. But who am I to resist a pretty girl?” Sansa tensed. “Don’t worry, lass,” he said. “I’m not going to fuck you unless you ask for it. Rattleshirt and his like might not mind shoving their little peckers into a dry cunt, but there’s no fun fuckin’ a woman unless she’s willing, slick as a baby seal and beggin’ for it.” 

Sansa felt her face get hot and she could not meet the man’s eyes, for she could not help but think of all the times she had whimpered and moaned and pleaded with Jon as he teased her, his finger or his manhood lightly touching her cunt, her needing to feel him, aching for it, arching her back and rolling her hips trying to bring him inside of her, him smiling against her lips as she whispered “please” and he slid into her, and pleasure, all the more intense for having waited, yearned, burned for it. 

She felt the man’s eyes on her. “So it seems,” he said with a grin, “that the wolf knew a thing or two more than just fightin’. Well, there are few enough things to do in the north, and fightin’ and fuckin’ are the best of them.” He stood. “Suppose I must talk with Rattleshirt. What tales did you spin for him, wolf girl?” 

“He thinks that you stole me from somewhere south of the wall. I told him that I was... “ she swallowed, and then continued, “your woman.” 

“Clever little web you’ve caught us both in. Come now, woman, let’s go treat with the fucker.” He offered her his hand and she took it. It was hard and rough, and she tried not to think about Jon, whose hands were also calloused, but whose touch had always been gentle. 

“Sansa,” she said, when she was on her feet. “My name is Sansa.” 

He nodded and opened the flap of the tent so that she might exit. They found the Lord of Bones, Lenyl, and Osha standing a little ways off, laughing with Rek and a large, red hair woman. 

“Rattleshirt,” Tormund said as he approached. “It’s been a long time.” 

“Gaintsbane,” the Lord of Bones replied. “Are you done with her already? Seems a short time to me,” he said eyeing Sansa where she stood, slightly behind Tormund. 

Tormund grinned. “I’ve barely started. When you’ve got a pecker as big as mine, Rattleshirt, women need some warming up or else it won’t fit, and what’s the fun in that?” 

“It’s true,” Rek said and the woman beside him pushed him playfully. 

“Your cock ain’t as big as all that,” she said, though Sansa noted that she smiled at him affectionately. 

“Gentle with the man, Munda,” Tormund said. “He’s no good at fightin’ with a spear, don’t ruin what reputation he’s managed to build for fuckin’ with one.” He turned his attention back to the Lord of Bones. “Do you plan to camp with us tonight? If so, I’d recommend pitchin’ your tent as far from my daughter’s as you can. She yowls like a shadow-cat. None of my men had a decent night sleep since Rek decided to stick his prick in her.” 

“We’d rather be on our way,” Bones said. “Just as soon as payment is discussed. We brought you back your cunt, Giantsbane. And didn’t even taste her ourselves.” 

“I’d break your bones if you had, Rattleshirt. Those outside and in. And especially the one you’d fucked her with.” 

“It was more trouble that a bitch is worth bringing her here. You owe me a debt.” 

“I’ll pay you what’s owed.” 

“Good,” the Lord of Bones said with a ghoulish smile. “I like the idea of you having to suck my cock for a while.” 

“A little pecker like that. It’d be no more than one bite.” 

The Lord of Bones looked at Sansa again and shook his head. “A girl like that, Giantsbane. You should be ashamed of yourself. Gone soft. Can’t wrestle a free woman into your bed, so you’ve taken a limp, useless little kneeler?” 

Tormund’s shoulders tensed. “Mind your stupid tongue, Rattleshirt, or someone will pull it out.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” 

“You done me a favor, which is the only reason why you’re not dead already. But you best be leavin’ if you’d like to stay that way.” 

The Lord of Bones grinned. “How does that cock in your mouth taste?” he said, using his staff to poke the other man in the chest. 

“Like death,” Tormund said, and he grabbed the staff, using it to knock the other man to the ground. He brought it down again and again to the sound of cracking bones.The savage beating continued until Rattleshirt’s skull was so shattered that no one could use it as a mask. Tormund looked down at the pulpy mess beneath him. “Looks like you’re the one’s gone soft,” he said. He then turned to look at Lenyl and Osha. “You are both welcome to join my band. Rattleshirt’s always been a prick, and that’s no fault of yours. He came out of his mother’s cunt that way. If not, I expect you gone by nightfall.”

Lenyl looked from Rattleshirt’s remains to Tormund then back, and he turned and walked away. Osha, though, met Tormund’s eyes, and then spat on Rattleshirt’s corpse, and the big man nodded to her. 

“You planning to tell us what this is all about?” the large woman demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. “Where did this woman come from, father? You haven’t been south of the wall for over a year, so I know you didn’t steal her from her bed.” 

Tormund nodded. “She’s the wolf’s woman and she’s in need of our protection. Munda, find her a tent and let the men know that she’s not for them. If I hear anyone acts otherwise, I’ll cut off his cock and stick it up his ass.” 

“Come with me, girl,” Munda said, and started walking across the camp. She eyed Sansa. “My father tells of fucking a bear, though we all know he likes to spin tales--especially when he’s in his cups. Did you really let that wolf fuck you?”

Sansa’s face burned. She was accustomed to men making the occasion crude jape or lewd remark, especially when they did not believe that any ladies were in earshot. But she was not accustomed to women, too, speaking so openly and so coarsely about what went on between a man and a woman in the privacy of their bedchamber. “He was a man,” she mumbled, and then she repeated herself, speaking a bit louder. “He was a man. When we were together, in that way. When he was,” she paused, “my lover.” My husband. My heart. 

Munda nodded and grinned. “Shame. I bet that tongue could find its way into all sorts of interesting places. Come on, then. Let’s find you a place to spend the night. We’ll leave at first light.” 

And as Sansa followed the woman through the camp, she realized that Munda was the first person she had told about the nature of her and Jon’s relationship. And she felt a smile come to her lips, flitting there for just a moment before it dispersed as quickly as smoke, the first she had smiled since she had dripped wax like blood on Jon’s chest and broken their hearts. She knew that when she returned to Winterfell, her sins would not be regarded with such easy acceptance, that she would have to contend with her mother’s scolding and her father’s solemn disappointment and the gossip of the servants and the other members of the nobility once the rumors spread about the daughter of Winterfell who had gone North with a wolf only to be ruined by a man. But here, at least, for the short time she remained, she need not be ashamed of what she had done, of who she had become while she lived beyond the wall. 


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Munda showed Sansa a tent, which she was to share with Osha, and another spearwife, a brown-haired woman named Karsi, and her two daughters. “It will be tight for all of us,” Karsi said, a statement of fact rather than an apology. “But that wolf protected my girls when our camp was attacked by some starving snow bears, got his belly cut up badly too, and I owe him a debt that I can’t ever truly repay.” 
> 
> “Thank you,” Sansa said, and the first time since leaving the enchanted castle, she felt safe. Surrounded by these women, who wielded spears and knives, she knew she would be protected. And she had a knife, too, she thought, though she scarcely knew how to use it. She wondered what Jon would think of her, could he see her now, and she wished that there was some way to tell him that she had kept her word, that she had found a way to survive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and kind words, and I hope that everyone has a safe and happy New Year. 
> 
> Thanks to SaraStarbuck for beta-reading and helping me survive 2020. <3

Munda showed Sansa a tent, which she was to share with Osha, and another spearwife, a brown-haired woman named Karsi, and her two daughters. “It will be tight for all of us,” Karsi said, a statement of fact rather than an apology. “But that wolf protected my girls when our camp was attacked by some starving snow bears, got his belly cut up badly too, and I owe him a debt that I can’t ever truly repay.” 

“Thank you,” Sansa said, and the first time since leaving the enchanted castle, she felt safe. Surrounded by these women, who wielded spears and knives, she knew she would be protected. And she had a knife, too, she thought, though she scarcely knew how to use it. She wondered what Jon would think of her, could he see her now, and she wished that there was some way to tell him that she had kept her word, that she had found a way to survive. 

The stew they ate that night was thin, weak stuff compared to the food that Sansa was accustomed to, both at Winterfell and the enchanted castle that she had come to think of as her home. But it was a welcome respite from the rations she had packed and that she knew she would be forced to eat again as they journeyed south. When Karsi had brought them the bowls, steaming and fragrant with herbs Sansa could not identify, she hesitated a moment, tempted oto refuse the offer of food. It was clear that the wildlings had little enough to spare, and she ought not eat what the small amount they did. But Karsi insisted, saying that Sansa was her guest and Tormund’s, and though they had not bread, they would share a meal with her, in keeping with the ancient rights, which were still remembered in the true North. 

Sansa had taken a bite of stew and thanked her host. “The Lord of Bones was not treated very gently for a guest.” 

“The Lord of Bones was a prick,” Karsi said around a mouth full of stew. “And bad blood flowed between those men long before you arrived. It was only a matter of time before one killed the other, and I am glad that it was settled as it was, and not the other way around.” She chewed and swallowed. “Besides, Tormund didn't offer him bread or salt or nothing. He was no guest of ours.” 

“But he did bring me here,” Sansa said. The man had been coarse and vile, but he had, at least, done that. 

“He knew there was a chance there’d be a fight, that he wouldn’t come out alive if he brought you here, but he might’ve hoped he could win. And he knew his neck would surely meet Tormund’s great axe if he didn’t. It was his own fault.”

“What happened?” Sansa asked, her curiosity getting the better of any reservations she had about prying  into the lives of the people, who had been so kind to her.

Karsi seemed more than pleased to relate the story. “What always happened to get men at each other’s throats: there was a woman they both wanted,” she said. “Back when they were both younger men, Rattleshirt wanted Tormund’s woman. So he took her--and such a thing is not done here. You can take a woman from her father, but not from her man. Didn’t treat her right, neither. Beat her. Fucked her whether she wanted it or not. Didn’t take her long to run back to Tormund’s bed. When Rattleshirt tried to take her back, it came to blows. They nearly killed each other then--only the gods know why they didn’t. But things ain’t never been right between them.” She shrugged. “You see, if you’d told him you’d run, he could have kept you from hisself. You coulda fought or tried to run, but you’d be his for a while a least. But you’d told him you got lost, which meant that you were still Tormund’s. Perhaps he came here with the intention of setting old things right. It would have been the smartest thing that piece of pig shit ever did. But he shoulda known that a man like Tormund ain’t to be talked to that way. He was lookin for a fight, and unfortunately for him, he got it. The Others take him. They’re welcome to him and the rest of us are better off without the likes of him walking about.” 

Sansa nodded into the darkness. 

“Munda tells me you’ve lost your lover,” Karsi said, her voice surprisingly gentle, a tone that reminded Sansa of her mother. She would use the same tone when Sansa came to her in tears. 

How would her mother react, she wondered, when her daughter returned to Winterfell, heartbroken and ruined? And how could Sansa bare her mother’s concern when her mother’s love had been the instrument of her doom? No, she reminded herself. It was not her fault but my own. She merely gave me the candle. I was the one who lit it. 

“I did,” Sansa said. And I have no one to blame but myself. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Sansa looked from the woman to her children. “Did you lose their father as well?” Such a thing could not be uncommon, Sansa thought, not in this realm where winter and death had so long reigned. 

“I didn’t so much lose the elder’s father, as he lost me,” she replied. “He was a right bastard. Was young when I let him take me, only just barely a woman. I ran before he’d broken my legs along with all those other bones, and by then he’d put a babe in my belly. I found another man, a better one. He gave me my second girl before we parted.” 

“Why did you part?” Sansa said, her face coloring. “That is, if you don’t mind my asking.” 

Karsi smiled. “He was a decent man and a very good lover, but he was not the sort to let himself be tied to one woman. Never pretended otherwise. And when I went to his bed, I knew that it would only be for a season. Frankly, that was all I wanted from him. Didn’t want to be trapped by any other man. Not even one as good as he was.” She looked fondly on her girls. “He gave more than either of us had planned,” she said. “And for that I will always be grateful. I have one girl born of strength and another born of love, and I could ask for more. Daughters are a blessing.” 

“It is not so in the south,” Sansa said softly, for there it was boys that were prayed for and daughters were met with the reassurance that a lady could always try again. Her birth had been celebrated, but she wondered if the bell would have rung so loudly had Robb not already been born to ensure that there would always be a Lord Stark in Winterfell. 

Dangerous and deadly as these lands might be, there was something to be said about a place where a daughter was not a disappointment and a woman could leave the bed of a man who did not treat her well, could find comfort in that of another. She wished that the same were true of the realm to the south, a place where husbands ruled their wives. Some kindly, some harshly, it was true, but whether a gentle master or a cruel one, a husband was still a master, and not one a wife could escape. Would that Arya might be able to flee from her marriage from Ramsey Bolton. Would that Sansa might be able to escape whatever man was sure to be thrust upon her when she returned home. She looked at Karsi’s daughters and felt almost envious of them, for though their life was difficult and the land they called home hard, they did not have to grow up with the knowledge that they would be subjected to a man. If one came for them that they did not want, they could fight him, and if he caught her, she could flee him. 

“Southerners are a bunch of fools,” Karsi said. “No offense intended.”

“None taken. I am afraid that I have been as great a fool as the rest of them,” Sansa replied, and she wondered how she had found the strength to keep the tears from her voice. 

“Well, we best bed down. Tormund will be up late into the night and deep into his cups,” Karsi said. “And he will still insist that you leave with the sun rise.” 

It had grown quite dark, and as Sansa moved toward Karsi’s tent she thought she saw two glowing spots within the black of the night. But when she looked again to show the other woman, they were gone. 

That night, she dreamed of Jon. They were in her room, her bed, in the enchanted castle, the room lit with soft candle light. They were kissing, stopping only long enough to gaze into each other’s eyes. And then his lips were on her neck and they moved down her body, and she watched him as he took her nipple into his mouth and it peaked beneath his tongue. And then he was kissing her navel and then his head was between her legs and he looked at her, his eyes meeting hers as he licked the length of her cunt, her pleasure almost cresting. He held her gaze as he devoured her and cried out his name and then he climbed on top of her, slid inside of her, moved within her, filled and completed her, and spilled his seed inside of her. 

She woke the next morning with fire between her legs and her heart a little more broken. 

Just as Karsi had said, Tormund insisted that the warband leave at first light. It was not a long journey to the wall from where they were, he told her. Three days, perhaps, and he took only a small band with him. Osha would travel with him, as would Munda and Dek, and Tormund’s son Dormund, who had a deep voice and a booming laugh. He would leave his oldest son, Toregg, a grim-faced man a foot taller than even his father, to oversee the camp in his father’s absence. And Karsi would stay with him as his second. Sansa bid goodbye to the spearwife, thanking her for her kindness and wishing her the best for her and her daughters. 

“I hope they never have need to travel south,” Sansa said, “and to be subjected to the laws of the men there. Let them stay in the true north, where women can be free. I wish that I might.” 

“You could,” Karsi said. 

Sansa shook her head. “I am afraid that I was not made for such a life. I must return to my father’s home.” 

“If you ever change your mind, you know which direction to run.” 

The woman’s words weighed on Sansa had followed Tormund and his son’s south, away from the freedom she might have known. 

Sansa’s legs were still stiff and tired from all of the walking she had been forced to do the past few days. The life of ease that she had lived first at Winterfell and then with Jon had not prepared her to walk for endless miles over uneven ground and through the mud and muck. The Freefolk, used to far worse conditions, moved easily, effortlessly, almost, and Sansa felt ashamed of her inadequacies. 

She also envied their comradery as they traveled. There seemed to be an endless volley of teasing and jokes between the men and women, Dormund remarking that it was a wonder that Munda let Dek leave her tent, Dek asking the younger man if his cock was as short and wide as he was, Osha saying something about a man’s girth that made Sansa turn all shades of red, and Tormund responding that their family was rumored to have giant’s blood somewhere in their line, suggesting that their members told the truth of their ancestry. They laughed and japed and Sansa wondered if she had accepted Karsi’s offer if perhaps she might truly join, if one day she too might hurl coarse remarks and learn to wield a spear and bring a Freefolk fighter into her. Osha had become a member of their band the moment she had spit on Rattleshirt’s broken body in a way that Sansa doubted that she ever could. 

She could not stay in the north, she decided. Not without Jon. 

The warband paused, tensed. The fighters changed their grips on their weapons, and Sansa knew they were ready to attack if the need arose. 

“We’re being followed,” Tormund said. “For the past few miles now. Everyone alert.” 

They started walking again, but their movements were no longer the seemingly easy rambling of before. Each step was like a spring, ready to snap if the need arose. They still talked and laughed, loudly, but the tone had changed, and it had become a performance, a show for whoever was watching them. Osha then nudged Munda, who was walking beside her, her eyes flicking to some point in the distance and Munda nodded, and then, in an instant, she was throwing her spear, and there was a shriek of pain, piercing and inhuman. Dek and Tormund leapt into a run in the direction of the cry, Dormund right behind them, his short legs carrying him with surprising speed and grace. Munda and Osha stood on either side of Sansa, protecting her, she realized, in case there were others who had been following them, waiting in ambush. 

When Tormund returned, he had a mass of fur slung over his shoulder, which he dumped at Munda’s feet. 

“Your kill, daughter. Your skin.” 

“A shadowcat,” Munda observed. “And well fed at that. These creatures know better than to attack a human, let alone a band of five.” 

Five, Sansa thought. She does not include me in their number for she knows I am not one of them. 

“Sixskins,” Osha said. 

“Varamyr? The skinchanger,” Dek asked. 

Osha nodded. “Heard tales of him sending out his shadowcat to stalk any woman he gets it in his mind to fuck. Rattleshirt, stupid shit he is, brought the girl to him.” 

“You think he’ll try anything else?” 

Osha shook her head. “Might be best to keep a keen eye to the skys, but don’t think he’ll attack. Won’t risk losing another skin. Especially his own. He ain’t a brave man.” 

Tormund nodded. “Munda, Osha. Keep close. Dek, you’re with me. Dormund, counting on you to guard our rear.”

They traveled the next two days in that formation, wary and alert, but no other attacks came, not from Varamyr or any of the other evil things that dwelled in this land. Toward the end of the third day, they came to the old and broken wall. 

“We will make camp,” he told them, and then he turned to Sansa. “In the morning we will leave you. It is dangerous for us to travel so far south. In these lands, we stop being Freefolk and start being Wildlings.” 

Sansa nodded. “I understand. Thank you for all you have done for me.” 

That night, Sansa approached Osha. “Would you come south with me?” 

Osha shook her head. “I wish you all the best, but there ain’t nothing for me there. My place is here, where a woman can be free.” 

“Yes,” Sansa said. “I wish that I did not have to leave these lands.” 

“You don’t.” 

“I do,” she said, for she had promised him that she would survive and she could not live in these lands without him. It would kill her to remain, she knew, and so she had to return to Winterfell. 

“Lord Snow did much for us. When you see him again, tell him that Tormund Giantsbane remains his friend.” 

“I don’t know that I ever shall see him.” 

“You’re his woman, are you not? That wolf has a warrior’s spirit and the heart of one of the Freefolk. If you wish to be taken, he’ll fight to steal you back.” 

Sansa tried to force a smile to her lips, but the effort was too much and she was too exhausted from all of her days of walking. “I pray that you are right,” she said.

“The Gods are not far from these lands. They may hear you.” He looked at her. “Perhaps during your time with us, your heart, like your hair, has been kissed by the fire of the Freefolk. Perhaps you will fight to steal him back.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa arrived at Winterfell dirty and exhausted. Her hair was tangled and matted, her clothes covered in stains and mud. She’d had to shed layers that were necessary in the cooler lands beyond the wall for it was now the height of summer in the North. The dagger Osha had given her was still in her belt, though she had, thankfully, no need to use it. 
> 
> She had staggered up to the gates, and the guards had scarcely recognized her, refusing her entry and demanding to know who she was. When she had told them that she was Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of Winterfell, they had scoffed at her, and she could not blame them for it. She knew that the wretched creature who approached the castle bore little resemblance to the proud and lovely girl who had left on the back of a wolf. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for their kudos and very kind comments. Sorry it took me a while to get this chapter up. Got suck doomscrolling yesterday, and didn't manage to get this up. Sorry this chapter is a bit angsty... 
> 
> And thanks to SaraStarbuck, who, even in her dreams, gives me ice cream to cheer me up.

Sansa arrived at Winterfell dirty and exhausted. Her hair was tangled and matted, her clothes covered in stains and mud. She’d had to shed layers that were necessary in the cooler lands beyond the wall for it was now the height of summer in the North. The dagger Osha had given her was still in her belt, though she had, thankfully, no need to use it. 

She had staggered up to the gates, and the guards had scarcely recognized her, refusing her entry and demanding to know who she was. When she had told them that she was Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of Winterfell, they had scoffed at her, and she could not blame them for it. She knew that the wretched creature who approached the castle bore little resemblance to the proud and lovely girl who had left on the back of a wolf. 

Fortunately, Arya has been passing through the courtyard. After throwing a few choice insults at the guards, she ushered her sister into the castle’s courtyard.

“Sansa,” she whispered, and Sansa knew that Arya must be taking in her sister’s haggard appearance, her worn and dirty clothing, the emptiness in her eyes. And in that moment, she could no longer restrain her grief. She had done what she needed to do to survive the journey south, and for a while, that meant suppressing her sorrow, burying it deep within her, for if she had allowed herself to feel the loss of him, she could never have forced herself to walk, to move, to endure, as she had promised she would. But now that she was safely within the walls of Winterfell, the misery that she had kept from herself overwhelmed her, and she crumpled to the cobblestone. 

Arya wrapped her arms around her as she wept, her body wracked with sobs. “You’re alright,” Arya said softly. “You’re home now.” And Sansa wanted to correct her, to tell her that she was wrong, because she wasn’t home. She had lost her home and her love and everything because she’d been such a fool, so weak, because she’d given into the temptation to see him for a moment and had, in doing so, lost him forever.

And then Lady Stark was there. She must have received word that her daughter had returned, but not the state she was in, for she cried out when she saw her. “Oh my sweet, Sansa,” she said. “What has he done to you?” 

Sansa felt rage coil through her, white hot and burning, and in that moment, she hated her mother for giving her the instrument of her undoing and the doubt and insecurity to use it. She had been the one to give into the temptation to light the candle, but it was her mother who had placed it into her hands. It was her mother who had gone through Sansa’s private letters, who had read those intimate words that were never meant for any eyes other than her own. It was her mother who had suggested that Jon might not be all that he seemed, that he might be lying about his feelings for her, that she could not truly love him, truly know him, until she looked upon him. Sansa had lost everything because of her, and she was not sure if she could ever forgive her for it. 

“He did nothing,” she sobbed. “I was the one who spoiled everything. It was all me, and that gods’ forsaken candle you gave me.” 

“My dear girl,” Sansa’s mother placed a hand gently on her back. 

“Don’t touch me,” Sansa said, and even in her grief and rage, she felt a pang of sorrow, of guilt at the look that their mother directed to their mother. 

Arya shook her head, slowly, slightly, and then knelt down beside Sansa. “Let’s get you to your room,” she said softly. And Sansa nodded, realizing that she was attracting the attention of guards and servants and she certainly did not need them gawking at the broken girl who had left with the wolf and had come home looking like a beggar and wild with grief.

So she let her sister lead her to her bedchamber. There Arya helped her to undress, while Sansa stood dully. She knew she was a mess, but those were clothes that Jon had touched and she did not wish to part with them. Every second she feared that she would forget, that she would lose him just a little bit more until there was nothing left at all. 

When Arya came to the belt at her hip, she looked at her sister half in admiration and half in disbelief. “Not your usual choice of accessory, sister,” she said wryly. “But not one that I disapprove of.” And when all Sansa could do was muster a small smile, Arya returned it. “When you are feeling ready, you will have to tell me how you came by it.” And Sansa felt her heart break a bit more at her sister’s kindness, for she doubted that she would ever be ready to tell her story, fearing that the telling of it would make it all the more real. 

Arya or her mother must have ordered a bath, because Arya helped her into the tub, steaming, though it did not smell as sweet as the scented waters of the castle. Sansa closed her eyes, and her sister helped her bathe, brushing out her hair with a gentleness that Sansa would have almost not believed her capable of. When Arya seemed satisfied that her sister was sufficiently clean, she toweled her dry and helped her into a shift, the fabric so much coarser than the soft cotton and silks that she had grown accustomed to in the castle beyond the wall, in the home that she had been exiled from. When she had left with Jon, she had feared but accepted that she might never be allowed to return to the only home she had ever known. Now, she mourned the one that she and Jon had built together. 

Grief gnawed at her stomach and she feared she might be sick. 

Arya helped her to the bed and pulled the covers over her. It was the middle of the day, but it mattered not. Sansa was exhausted, sore from walking, weary with despair. Her heart was heavy, despite being broken, and she was so tired from carrying it all that way back to Winterfell.

She needed a rest, but when she closed her eyes, she found no repose, for in her mind she still saw Jon, his grief and anger as he woke and realized what she had done, the sorrow and desperation in his eyes as they had made love that one last time, his look of despondency as she left him to his fate, the torment and imprisonment that she had condemned him to. 

She spent three days in bed. 

She refused to see anyone but Arya. She came to know the knocks of her other family members. Her mother’s tentative at first but growing more desperate as each day passed and Sansa refused her pleas for entry. Her father’s firm rap accompanied by his gentle words. Robb’s pouding, dull and flat against the door, his voice increasingly ragged as he asked to talk to her. Theon’s banging, his demands to know what the wolf had done to her, then chastisement for not taking him up on his offer and then apologies, expressions of concern. Bran’s single tap, his hopes that she was alright. And finally Rickon’s sometimes low and uncertain, for he was too young to fully understand, and others a fury of fists upon the door because he wanted to see his sister and was angered that she did not wish to see them. She also heard the sharp knock of Septa Mordane, no doubt coming at her mother’s request, hoping that Sansa would be as obedient a pupil as ever.

But she unbarred the door for none but Arya, and her sister spent long days in her room. She stroked her hair and held her while she cried. She tried to coax Sansa to eat from the trays laden with food that the maids left outside of her room, and sometimes she was successful, but often she was not, for Sansa had no stomach to eat, not even the lemon cakes that seemed to come with every meal. Especially not the lemon cakes. The taste of them reminded her of Jon, of the nights they had sat together on her bed, his arms around her as she fed him bites of cake, his mouth hot as he licked the icing from her fingers, a promise of what was to come once they were through with cakes. Most often, though, Arya simply sat on the bed, watching over Sansa as she lay there in miserable silence, unable to speak, unable to sleep, unable to do anything but remember and regret. 

Finally, on the night of the third day, Sansa found the strength to sit up and speak, to tell her story, though she knew it was a poor one for it did not end happily. She told her about the enchanted castle and her first night there when Jon had come to her rooms and made his request. She related her fears about his intentions and how misguided they had been, the kindness and gentleness with which he treated her, the respect with which he honored her request. She tried to explain her growing affection, and desire, for him, and the night when she gave him permission, asked him, to touch her, the pleasure that she had found in that bed with him. She told her sister that in coming home to Winterfell, she realized how completely she loved him. And then she did her best to recount her reunion with him, the return north, the night he took her maidenhead. She could not look at her sister as she admitted that she had made love with a man who was not her husband, but Arya took her hand and when Sansa met her eyes, there was no judgement there. That look gave her the courage, the strength, she needed to continue, for as ashamed as she might have been to tell her sister that she had given herself to Jon, had ruined herself according to the society in which they had both been raised, she knew that betraying him had been an act far more worthy of contempt. That had been the moment in which she had truly dishonored herself. So she told of the handfasting, and her nightmares, and then, the night when she had lit a candle in the darkness and it had burned down her entire world. Arya squeezed her hand as she related the details of the curse, the punishment that Jon would endure because of her curiosity, her inability to resist the temptation to look upon him for just a few more months until the curse was broken and they could live the rest of their days in the light. She narrated her journey back to Winterfell, the threats she had faced and the friends she had made, and Arya’s eyes had grown wide at her descriptions of the women, the spear wives who were fierce and free. 

When Sansa was done, she and Arya sat quietly for long minutes, and Sansa did not know what more to say for she had already said so much. 

When Arya finally spoke, her voice was low. “Well, it’s clear what we need to do.”

Sansa was not sure how she had hoped her sister might respond, had expected her to, but it was not like that. “Nothing seems particularly clear to me,” Sansa replied. 

“All the stories you love, and you can’t even see how your own is supposed to go.” 

“I’m fairly certain that my tale is supposed to be a warning. The story of the stupid girl who had everything and lost it all.” Because she had grown too curious, too bold. Because she had failed her test of trust and fate and now both she and Jon were being punished for it. 

“Your story’s not over yet,” Arya said stubbornly. “And neither is mine.” She sighed. “When we were girls I used to get so frustrated with you because you were always so busy listening to stories that you forgot to live your own. And that’s precisely what we need to do now.” 

“Write a story.” 

“An ending for one. Your favorite kind.” 

“Arya, please. Speak plainly.”

“We are going to go find your husband and then we are going to rescue him. So that you can have your happy ending.”


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And how can we possibly do that?” Sansa said, incredulous, but hope fluttering in her chest on wings as delicate as a moth. “I don’t know where he is, where we might even begin to look for him.” 
> 
> “Surely he must have given you some clue about where he was taken to.” 
> 
> “He was able to tell me so little before the curse. And then afterward….” Afterward had been a blur of tears as he had hastily told her his story and she had numbly listened, hardly able to understand anything at all except that this was their final minutes together, that she would have to leave and he would be taken. But taken where? Either he had not said or she could not remember. 
> 
> “If he didn’t tell you, then that will certainly complicate things, but we’ll find him.” 
> 
> “We will?” 
> 
> “We have to,” Arya said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in posting. I was a bit bogged down with course prep for the Spring Semester. But that is all set now and I hope to start posting more regularly. 
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful beta-reader SaraStarbuck who I can't wait to see once she is done quarantining.

“And how can we possibly do that?” Sansa said, incredulous, but hope fluttering in her chest on wings as delicate as a moth. “I don’t know where he is, where we might even begin to look for him.” 

“Surely he must have given you some clue about where he was taken to.” 

“He was able to tell me so little before the curse. And then afterward….” Afterward had been a blur of tears as he had hastily told her his story and she had numbly listened, hardly able to understand anything at all except that this was their final minutes together, that she would have to leave and he would be taken. But taken where? Either he had not said or she could not remember. 

“If he didn’t tell you, then that will certainly complicate things, but we’ll find him.” 

“We will?” 

“We have to,” Arya said. 

“And if we don’t.” 

“We have to,” Arya repeated, this time with more force. “We will search the entire continent if we must. But I am not going to let you lose your chance at happiness, or allow what could be my only chance for adventure to slip through my fingers.” 

“You are going to come with me?” 

“Of course I am.” 

“You can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“It is going to be dangerous.” 

“No more dangerous than the man that I am supposed to marry,” Arya said, softly. “Don’t you see, Sansa? This is the obvious solution. The only way to secure happiness for us both.” 

“But we’ll never find him.” 

“You just have to have hope is all.” 

Hope, Sansa thought. She had thought herself so like Jaesirudy, who had also given into temptation, who had looked at what she was told not to, and who had unleashed sorrow and grief. But in her misery, her regret, Sansa had forgotten that once the ills that the spiteful gods had placed within the urn had burst forth, hope had remained, thin and meager wisps of light, to provide what solace it could to a world wracked with the evil gifts the gods had bestowed upon Jaesirudy. Sansa had been so clouded by despair and guilt and heartache that she had not seen hope, so small and delicate in the midst of her misfortune, and, yet, cutting through the darkness all the same. 

“Alright,” Sansa said. 

“Alright?” Arya repeated. 

“Yes, we’ll go, though I fear that we don’t have much chance of finding him.” 

“So long as there is a chance, Sansa. You cannot abandon him to his fate.” 

“Nor leave you to yours. Not again. I should not have the first time.” 

“Then it is decided. We leave tonight.”

“So soon?” It was one thing to seize what hope she had left to her. It was quite another to leave that night, for Sansa had already faced the dangers and discomforts of the road, and she was not eager to return to them with so little warning. 

Arya nodded. “Right now, everyone, our family, the servants in the castle, they’re all accustomed to us spending our days locked inside of this room. If we leave tonight, it will be quite some time before they suspect we’ve gone.” 

“Alright,” Sansa said again. “You’re right, of course.” This was for Jon, she reminded herself. She had made him a promise that she would survive, and it had become clear that she could not truly live without him.

“Good. Pack what you can, anything you might need. I’ll steal some rations from the kitchen and some of father’s gold.” She scowled at what Sansa assumed was the scandalized expression written across her face. “Not so much as he’ll miss it, but we need some coin if we are to survive.”

“And if you are caught?”

“I won’t be. I’ve learned to move quick as a snake and quiet as a shadow. It’s amazing what you can learn sneaking around a castle.” Arya grinned. 

“I imagine so.”

“Once the moon rises, I will come to fetch you. Don’t see anyone until then.” 

“Arya...” Sansa began and then she stopped herself. It would pain her to leave her brothers, her mother, her father, even Theon, without bidding them farewell. But Sansa knew that Arya was right. Were they to reveal a whisper of their plans to anyone, they would not be permitted to depart and she would lose her grip on whatever scant scraps of hope she clung to. So she nodded. “I understand,” she said. 

“Remember,” Arya said, as she opened the door, “not a word,” and she slipped into the hall. 

Sansa tried to not to think of the last time she had hastily packed for a journey that she could have never fully prepared herself for. She could see Jon desperately shoving clothing and provisions into her bag as though it might somehow fill the gaping hole in their hearts, her scrambling through her things, hurriedly dressing, feeling dull and numb and unable to fully comprehend all that she had lost, refusing that knowledge because to have it would have destroyed her utterly. Tears filled her eyes at the memory, but she was determined to continue. 

She pulled the satchel out from beneath the bed where she had stowed it the first day she had arrived at Winterfell, before she had crawled into her bed never planning to leave it. She was surprised by how light it was, for she remembered how heavy it felt as she had journeyed south. She had forgotten what she had packed that night, so she sat on the floor of her room, and went through the contents. 

She found his letters and the dried roses and  _ Bael the Bard _ tied into a neat bundle, the only proof she had that her love had truly ever been. She held them to her chest and did not try to stop the tears, and she determined that wherever they were going, she must bring them with her, for they were too precious to her to be left behind. 

Next, Sansa pulled the mirror from her bag and looked into it. Jon had told her that if she wished to see his thoughts she should look into its depths. She had been afraid to look before, dreading what she might see there, but her sister’s talk of hope had made her brave. Yet when she looked now, all she saw was her reflection staring back, and she wondered if there was some magic word or incantation that she must say that Jon had forgotten to tell her in those final rushed moments they’d had together. Still, though she was disappointed, she returned it to her bag. It was the last thing he had given to her and she would not leave it behind. 

She packed what clothes she could, but now that those few items she had to remind her of Jon were carefully stowed, it was difficult to determine what else to pack. She had no idea where they would go, what conditions they would have to endure. They would be heading south, she supposed, away from the land where the cold had reigned for centuries. It was no place for dragons, at least not those who were not born of a northern woman. Jon had said, had he not, that his aunt had not liked the cold. Instead, she had urged him to go where summers were long. But there was little help in such a phrase. It could mean so many different places, and Sansa knew so little of geography. Robb and Theon had teased her, but the truth of it was that a lady had little use for knowledge of far-off lands. Her domain was limited to her lord husband’s holdings and her concern limited to neighbors, neither friends and allies strayed too far from the boards of her home. She had learned of the North, but almost nothing of the larger world except what she had learned from songs and stories. And though they painted vivid pictures of the canals of Bravos and the wide plains of the grass sea, the great pyramids of Mereen and the lands that lay beneath a shadow and stretched beyond Asshai, the world was so vast, and she knew so little of it, and even less of where Jon might be. 

She did her best not to despair. Vague as what he had said might have been, it was a start, a single clue for them to ponder, and a direction, for the further one traveled south, the longer and hotter the summers became.

It did not take her nearly long enough to pack and even all of her careful folding and refolding of dresses could not be stretched to fill the hours that remained until the moon was high and the castle was asleep. She wished that Arya would return, for she wished for company, and dared not venture forth. She had not left her room since she had returned to Winterfell and to emerge now from her grief would only invite unwanted questions that she could not answer. And, she imagined, that seeing her family again would only make it more difficult to leave them this third time. The first time she had left for duty, to give herself to pay a debt of old, the second time she had left for love, to join Jon in his home and make it fully her own, to build what life they could together. This time, the third time, she left for hope. It did not offer the certainty of duty or love, but she clung to it all the same to give her what strength it might. 

She heard the tray left outside of her door. The servants had given up knocking, knowing that entry would be denied. She had not eaten much since her return, her stomach too twisted, the knots in it too tight, for food. Even the broth that Arya had insisted that she eat had made her feel nauseated. Now she wished that she had forced herself to eat more. She was weak, and she would need her strength for the journey. So, she forced herself to eat everything on the tray, the stew and bread, the fruit and cake, taking small bites, chewing and swallowing slowly. It took her hours, but that mattered not. If filling her belly also filled the anxious hours before her, then all the better. 

The day dragged on, but eventually, from her window, she saw the sky dimming to the east, the pale blue of day darkening to a soft indigo blanket that stretched across the heavens. She wondered what the sky was like wherever Jon was, and if he was thinking of her, and what he would say about this wild plan to try to find and rescue him. A part of her was sure that he would disapprove of her putting herself in danger for him. It was true that she had promised him to survive, and she had. But now, she would live again.

She gave into temptation one more time and pulled the mirror again from her bag. But this time was no different from the first, and when she looked into it all she saw was her own face looking back at her. She sighed, carefully rewrapping it in one of her dresses to protect it during travel and slipping it into her bag. There was nothing left to do but wait. 

Eventually, after many anxious hours, when the sky was a deep black except for pricks of starlight and Sansa’s room had grown dark--she did not light a candle, the nights alone with Jon having made her accustomed too, comforted by, the sable of night--Sansa heard a light knock on the door. “Who’s there?” she whispered against the door, afraid that she would make too much noise and awaken the castle, which was finally quiet beneath a heavy mantle of sleep. 

“It’s me,” Arya replied and Sansa opened the door. “Have you been sitting in here in the dark?” she asked as she lifted her candle and Sansa felt the color rise in her cheek. When Arya saw her with her bulging satchel, she eyed her skeptically. “Do you truly need all of that?”

“Yes,” Sansa replied defensively. “I dare not leave it behind.” 

“Alright, then,” Arya sighed. “Fortunately, I anticipated that you would not be packing light. Gendry is readying Lady and Nymeria.” 

“Gendry?” 

“The blacksmith,” Arya paused. “Or rather the apprentice blacksmith. He’s brilliant with horses.” 

Sansa’s eyes widened. “Arya did you… What I said before I left…” 

The unspoken question hung in the air between them. “No. I didn’t take him into my bed. Not yet at least. Though I believe I might have resorted to it had it come to that.” She smirked. “Now come on. We need to get going. We need to put miles between us and the castle by morning, otherwise we will never get away with this.” 

Sansa followed Arya as she creeped through the castle, noting that her sister moved sure and silent. The courtyard, when they entered it, was empty except for a young man holding three horses. He was tall and broad shouldered and he smiled as he approached. 

“What do we need Bull for?” Arya said, gesturing toward the large chestnut gelding. 

“I can’t keep up with you if I’m on foot and the two of you are on horseback.” 

“No,” Arya said flatly. “You are not coming with us.” 

“Like hell I’m not,” Gendry said, and Sansa thought that Arya might have finally met her match for stubbornness. “I can’t let you leave on this fool mission on your own.”  “Why? Because we’re girls?” Arya said, jutting out her chin. 

“No,” he replied, clearly growing annoyed. “Because you’re ladies.” He ran his hand over his head. “Do you want me to go wake your father? Maybe he can talk some sense into you.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” a voice sounded from the other side of the courtyard, and Sansa felt her heart drop, for they had been discovered, and there was no way that her father would allow them to leave. “First, I received word of food stolen from the larder, then I discovered coins missing from my room. I knew that it must be one of my children, for they were the only ones who would be so bold. Though I admit I did not suspect Sansa to be the culprit.” 

“She wasn’t,” Arya replied. 

“It was my fault though,” Sansa added, not wanting her sister to shoulder the blame that, by right, must rest on her shoulders. “Father, I must go.” 

“It seems that twice now you have been returned to us only to depart. At least last time you gave us fair warning.” 

“I would have told you,” Sansa said, her cheeks flushing. “But I could not risk you preventing our journey.” 

“And where do you plan to go?” 

“I…” she started, before trailing off, knowing there was no way to properly end the sentence. “South,” she tried again. “We are going south to find Jon.” 

Ned Stark nodded. “The young man your mother told me about?” 

“Yes,” Sansa said. “Though she had promised not to tell.” 

“Secrets do not sit well between husband and wife. They soon grow sour and spoil a marriage. He left you?”

“Not by his choosing. He was taken, and I must rescue him.” She lauded for a moment, gathering herself. “I love him, father. Please. You have let me go twice before, now, please, let me leave again.” 

Lord Stark looked at his daughters. “And I suppose this is your chance to evade your marriage to Lord Bolton’s son?” Arya nodded, and her father sighed. “They will take it as a slight, no doubt, but I have been in talks with Lord Karstark about his daughter Alys. She will likely marry Robb and Rickard, who has been among the loudest to voice his support for the Boltons, will go silent, and soon the grumbling of the others will follow.” He fell silent for a moment, looking from one daughter to the other. “I know that I have failed you both in many ways, but in this I will not.” He held out a bag, heavy with coins. “Go with this, and my blessing.” He nodded to Gendry. “And take this lad with you. He looks strong, and he’s right about the road being no safe place for ladies.” 

Arya screwed up her face in the way she always did when she planned to object, so Sansa spoke before her sister might. “Thank you, father,” she said. 

“I hope you find happiness,” Ned said. “Not many people manage to. Especially not the daughters of powerful men” 

“Many are not given the chance. Thank you, father, for giving us ours.” 

His face grim, Ned Stark nodded as he watched his two daughters mount their horses and depart. As they rode through the gates, Sansa turned back one last time and gave a small wave to her father, who stood alone in the courtyard, bidding them a silent farewell. 


End file.
